New Delhi: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi Friday said declaration of candidates for the Lok Sabha polls will be as per a "new process" which will take into account the "voice of the people" and work with a formal structure.

"For the first time, we are working on a deadline, getting voices of people into the party systematically," Rahul Gandhi told media persons here.

"The ticket distribution will be done by a new process. Discussions have been taking place within our party for a long time. We are doing this with a formal structure," he said before holding consultations with the newly-appointed chairpersons of the screening committees for all states and union territories.

In a major exercise ahead of Lok Sabha polls, Congress had last night constituted screening committees for all states and Union Territories for early selection of candidates.

In the first meeting of the Chairmen of these screening committees, Gandhi today underlined the importance of giving weightage to common people in decision making in political processes including deciding candidates.

He is learnt to have impressed upon the broad parameters of candidate selection like no criminal record against them and an experience of right kind of politics along with winnability.

Sources in the party had indicated that the meetings of the screening committees to select candidates will begin soon after the January 17 AICC meeting in Delhi, where the party could name Rahul Gandhi as its prime ministerial candidate.

With Rahul keen on early declaration of candidates for Lok Sabha polls, the party is understood to have decided to come out with a list of 150 to 200 nominees by the end of this month.

Lok Sabha elections are likely to be held in April-May and the decision will give at least three months time to the candidates to prepare for the elections.

The exercise is also in line with the recommendation of the AK Antony panel entrusted with the task of drawing up an action plan for the party for Assembly and Lok Sabha polls.

It had recommended that the candidates should be declared at least a few months ahead of the elections.

The AICC general secretary incharge of all the states were also present at the meeting. It was decided to prepare a schedule for the meetings of the screening committees and shortlisting of candidates.

The sources said the process of candidate selection at the level of Pradesh Election Committee is already on and once they send the list to the screening committee, the shortlisting will done here. Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde heads the panel for Bihar, West Bengal, Assam and Andaman Nicobar.

Congress MP and spokesperson P C Chacko heads the panel for Delhi, Chandigarh, Haryana and Punjab.

Bhubaneshwar Kalita is the chairman of the screening committee for Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir and V Narayanasamy for Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura.

Mallikarjun Kharge is chairman of the Screening Committee for Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Mumbai while Vayalar Ravi heads the panel for Andhra Pradesh, Goa and Karnataka, Ghulam Nabi Azad for Kerala, Lakshadweep, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu. Oscar Fernandes has been made chairman for the panel in Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.

Pawan Kumar Bansal, who had to resign from the Railway Ministry last year after a corruption controversy, is back with a larger role in the party heading the screening committees for crucial states Gujarat and Rajasthan along with Dadar Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.

Rahul's close aide Jitendra Singh is the screening committee in-charge of electorally crucial Uttar Pradesh.

All the screening committees have five members including AICC general secretary in-charge of the state, PCC chief and CLP leader and one more member.

Rahul's close aide Meenakshi Natarajan has been included as member for the panel in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha.

Avinash Pandey has been made a member in the panel for UP, where there are 80 Lok Sabha seats.

Manick Tagore, another Rahul pick, finds place in the panel for Assam, Andaman Nicobar, Bihar and West Bengal while Paresh Dhanani has been included in the committee for Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Mumbai.

"We will be deciding candidates for much more than 100 Lok Sabha seats by the end of January," an AICC functionary closely associated with the exercise has said.

The leader said it was not that every sitting MP will get a ticket indicating that there is a feeling in the party that not repeating some of candidates can help it tide over the anti-incumbency against the 10-year-old UPA government.

The leader said the party will finalise candidates for seats in Congress quota in states where there are alliances arguing that even if the seats are exchanged among the allies at a later stage, the names of candidates should be decided earlier.

"The screening process for the selection of candidates was a critical element of the Congress strategy for the elections," Gandhi said.

He added that the screening process was initiated much earlier than has historically been the case with Congress.

Gandhi has been laying great emphasis on giving grassroots workers a voice in the selection of candidates.

Exercises undertaken as a result of Gandhi's initiatives include using independent surveys to draw up profiles for each constituency along with its potential candidates.

A bigger involvement of District Congress Committees and the Pradesh Election Committee in the ticket distribution exercise has ensured a minimised role for the Screening Committee at the AICC level and the Central Election Committee as, by the time the list reaches those, the names have already been zeroed in upon.

The party, despite having made many announcements in the past, could not declare the names of candidates in time for the recent round of Assembly elections, especially in Madhya Pradesh, where that was seen as being one of the reasons behind Congress's defeat in the state.

Gandhi's pointsman, AICC general secretary Madhusudan Mistry, has prepared a separate list of candidates after visiting all 545 Lok Sabha seats.

Criteria like the denial of tickets to those who have successively tasted two electoral defeats or lost their deposits in the last poll were also put in place.

Sources however, said that an exception could be made for those candidates who polled 1 lakh votes on parliamentary seats even though they might have lost back-to-back elections.

Sourcs: Zee News

NEW DELHI: Faced with the challenge of raising anything between Rs 200 crore and Rs 300 crore in the next few months, the AAP is set to crowdsource a large part of its financial target through an art auction and cashless donations via mobile telephony.

The party, which set a new paradigm for electoral funding during Delhi elections through microdonations, bets on crowdsourcing for its national debut.

"The party has limited human resources. Crowd sourcing is the only feasible way to raise huge sums of money," party member Raghav Chadha said.

In the next few days, the Aam Aadmi Party will launch a service that allows potential donors to contribute right from the comfort of their mobile phones. The AAP will initially roll out this plan with Airtel and hopes to rope in more service providers eventually.

"There are about 750 million mobile phone users in this country. Of these, if we can get even 250 million to donate through their cellphones, then it will go a long way in meeting our target," said Chadha who is in charge of rolling out this fundraising platform.

The party, born out of an antigraft movement that transfixed India in 2011, had raised Rs 20 crore for the Delhi polls mostly through micro-donations from the public, a strategy that has been copied by major political parties.
The idea to raise funds through mobile phones will probably be another first in electoral funding.

The mobile phone money transfer application allows a user to load money on to a mobile phone handset and, subsequently, make bill payments, donate and transfer money. "To begin with, our target is to get one crore mobile phone users to donate Rs 100 a month through this application," said Chadha, who is also involved in organising the art auction.

He said the Aam Aadmi Party is working on lining up works from eight to 10 artists well known in auction circuit. "We are trying to reach out to artists personally to ensure the authenticity of the art work. We want to auction about seven to eight pieces from each artist," he said.

Chadha would not reveal the names of the artists his party has approached. The auction is expected to happen this month. The party is keen on one as revenue margins in an art auction are as high as 30% to 40%.

The AAP is looking to contest from at least 300 Lok Sabha seats and, according to people familiar with plans, it could go up to 400. The party has pencilled in an expenditure of around Rs 1 crore per Lok Sabha seat. The AAP has till now raised just Rs 7 crore.

Source: Economic Times

NEW DELHI/LUCKNOW: A non-Congress, non-BJP grouping is taking shape, the contours of which are expected to become clearer during the upcoming Parliament session, when about 10 parties plan to hold a joint press conference in New Delhi in a show of unity ahead of general elections.

Leaders of AIADMK, Samajwadi Party, Janata Dal (United), Biju Janata Dal and Left parties are planning to come together for a presser on the opening day or on the eve of the Parliament session. Bihar CM and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar had indicated such a move in an interview to ET published on Friday.
He had said the first step towards a national alternative will be the formation of a parliamentary block of like-minded parties. The joint press conference could provide a forum for a public announcement of this grouping.

CPM general secretary Prakash Karat met Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Thursday at Bhubaneswar and is expected to meet AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa next week to firm up the alliance in Tamil Nadu.

"I met Naveen Patnaik yesterday and had consultations with him on the need for non-Congress, non-BJP parties to come together and present an alternative agenda before the people for these parliamentary polls. We will all have a joint press conference on the eve of the parliament session or on the opening day," Karat said on Friday.

In his interview, Kumar had said that he was planning to bring Samajwadi Party and JD(S) into a federated structure that would allow all member parties to contest elections on separate symbols while staying part of a single entity.

JD(S) chief and former Prime Minister Deve Gowda told ET that he was in constant touch with Nitish Kumar, Naveen Patnaik and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.

"I am all for the Janata Parivar unity. A merger is not possible before the elections, so, we are not talking about a merger now. It can only happen after the elections," Gowda said, adding that talks were focused on the need for a national alternative ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

"Everybody has agreed on the need to come together on a single platform. Apart from secularism, we would also like to have a common economic agenda. I spoke to Naveen Patnaik and he has also agreed. I have requested the Left to draw up a common programme. This combination can win 130-140 seats in this election," Gowda said.

Even the United Front experiment of 1996 was a postpoll creation, Gowda said, reasoning that even if there is no alliance or tie-up before the elections, parties can come together to share a common platform, which can be expanded into an alliance later.

Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav concurred, saying, "This front will come together after the election results are out. Non-BJP and non-Congress parties will win the maximum number of seats and after polls we will form a front to run the government." SP appears comfortable with the conceptual framework of the proposed federation of SP, JD(U) and JD (S). "If that means parties running the states independently with a common minimum programme at the Centre, then yes. That is what we will work for," said Yadav.

Though SP is not talking about projecting its chief Mulayam Singh Yadav as a prime ministerial candidate just yet, the matter is very much on the party's agenda. "It will depend on who wins how many seats. Mulayam Singh is a tall leader and will play a major role in government formation," Yadav said.

The first step towards the formation of this alliance of regional parties was taken by the Left Front when it organised an "anti-communalism conference" at Delhi's Talkatora stadium on October 30 last year. Most of the 11 participants at that conference are expected to be present at the upcoming joint press conference.

Source: Economic Times

New Delhi: Banker Meera Sanyal and activist Mayank Gandhi figured in the AAP's first list of probable candidates released on Thursday for forthcoming Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra while no senior leader's name featured from Delhi and Haryana.

Sanyal, a former chief executive officer of Royal Bank of Scotland who joined AAP recently, has been named as probable candidate from Mumbai South constituency while Gandhi's name has been declared from North-west Mumbai. Of the 48 parliamentary seats in Maharashtra, the party has released the names of probable candidates from Mumbai, Nagpur, Thane, Pune and Nashik.

Vijay Pandhare, a former engineer with the Maharashtra government, has been named as probable candidate from Nashik. Pandhare played a major role in unearthing the irrigation scam that led to the resignation of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.

AAP has released list of probable candidates from all the 10 parliamentary seats in Haryana, which included Satish Yadav from Gurgaon and Amit Pathak from Faridabad.

Of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, the party relased the names of probable candidates for six seats. It is yet to declare any name from North-west Delhi constituency. The probable candidates in Delhi include Mohammad Mursaleen and Mohit Beniwal for Chandani Chowk seat, Dev Das Goswami and Irvinder Singh for West-Delhi seat and Mamta Sharma and Niranjan Koli from South Delhi Lok Sabha seat.

Party sources said that around 65 applicants were vying for each Lok Sabha seat in Delhi. The party has released list of probable candidates from all the 10 parliamentary seats in Haryana, which included Satish Yadav from Gurgaon and Amit Pathak from Faridabad.

The party has asked people to give feedback on the probable candidates. "We are in the process of screening the candidates and we will keep updating the list in coming days. The list will be finalised by the Political Affairs Committee after seeing feedback for the candidates," a party source said.

Source: IBNLive

NEW DELHI: With the BJP set to release the first list of candidates for Lok Sabha elections on Monday, party circles were thick with speculation whether veteran leader L K Advaniwill be among the names to be cleared by the party's parliamentary board.

The parliamentary board is expected to announce candidates for seats in smaller states like Himachal Pradesh.

However, the deliberations have acquired an interesting dimension because of the stubborn speculation that an influential section of Sangh Parivar brass would like Advani as well as another BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi to bow out of the Lok Sabha arena. The buzz started swirling aggressively last week when BJP inexplicably delayed announcement of its candidates for the biennial Rajya Sabha polls from Gujarat and Chhattisgarh.

NEW DELHI: With the BJP set to release the first list of candidates for Lok Sabha elections on Monday, party circles were thick with speculation whether veteran leader L K Advaniwill be among the names to be cleared by the party's parliamentary board.

The parliamentary board is expected to announce candidates for seats in smaller states like Himachal Pradesh.

However, the deliberations have acquired an interesting dimension because of the stubborn speculation that an influential section of Sangh Parivar brass would like Advani as well as another BJP veteran Murli Manohar Joshi to bow out of the Lok Sabha arena. The buzz started swirling aggressively last week when BJP inexplicably delayed announcement of its candidates for the biennial Rajya Sabha polls from Gujarat and Chhattisgarh.

BJP appears to be helpless when it comes to countering Congress strategies. Right from Karnataka to Jharkhand to Bihar, the Congress has managed to oust the BJP. The BJP leaders are trying to figure how the Congress made this happen.

The BJP was in power in Karnataka. When the controversy over then Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa arose, State Governor HR Bhardwaj made several statements against him. In order to right the wrong, Yeddyurappa met the Governor. The result? BSY was ousted from the BJP and the party defeated in the Assembly elections.

Likewise, in Jharkhand, the BJP was ruling in coalition with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM). But then Congress State incharge Shakeel Ahmed fuelled JMM leader Hemant Soren’s ambition to become Chief Minister. Soren broke ties with the BJP and the party lost ground.

The BJP Tuesday recommended the names of 10 candidates for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. A meeting under the chairmanship of state president Devendra Fadnavis finalised candidates for 10 seats out of the 26 in its quota.

Former BJP president Nitin Gadkari will contest from Nagpur, while Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Gopinath Munde will contest from Beed.

Fadnavis said: “The 10 names have been forwarded to the central committee, which will formally ratify and release the list.”

PATNA: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) will filed its candidates in all the 40 Lok Sabha constituencies in Bihar, said UP MLC and party's in charge for Bihar affairs Tilak Chandra Ahirwar while releasing a list of 28 party candidates here on Friday.

Dismissing as bunkum the pre-poll surveys which indicated fall in the BSP numbers in the Lok Sabha, Ahirwar said the party would fare better in 2014 election. He said Bihar has around 16% SC voters and, therefore, the party has good prospects in the state. He directed the candidates undertake door-to-door campaign to mobilize support for the party.

In a recent study conducted by The Internet and Mobile Association of India [IAMAI], it was found that India’s dynamic Internet population can swing around 3-4% of votes in the next Lok Sabha elections in India.
3-4% of votes means a lot in a closely fought election and when the stakes are high; this can be a major factor in determining which party wins majority and can have huge implications on the political landscape. Infact, even one percent of vote shift can sometimes mean difference between winning and losing!

Out of 140 million Internet users in India, 86 million are active on Social Networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Orkut. And this figure is expected to reach 91 million by the end of the year, with 19% growth rate.
The survey also found one interesting fact: the major user base of social media in urban locations are young men and college going students between the age group 18-24 and working women who are increasingly tilting towards social media usage.
Political parties are aware of this fact, and this is the reason both Congress and BJP have set up their exclusive social media teams which have enormous budget allocation to influence netizens.
On one hand, there is BJP led by Narendra Modi who has asked his social media team to get 48 lakh IDs of social media users and is aggressively pushing his agenda via Twitter, Google Hangouts and Facebook. BJP has already roped in veteran Internet strategists and Entrepreneurs Rajesh Jain and BG Mahesh who have in the past created some of the biggest online ventures in India.
On the other hand, Congress has also pulled its socks and is all set to unleash their own social media plans to influence online population. Reportedly, Congress party has set up Rs 100 crore war chest to counter BJP’s social media plans and aggressively promote themselves on social media across all platforms. In fact, social media has become so mainstream in politics that India’s oldest political party had to openly declare its social media campaign in order to send a message across.
Then there are guerilla social media marketing adapted by Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP; wherein they are using short, sharp strategies to inflict maximum damage to the bigger political parties.
For example, it was observed that AAP’s social media team has bought all keywords related with Narendra Modi on Google search results and Google display advertisement partners. Hence, when anyone searches “Narendra Modi”, AAP’s banners and posters are visible. Besides this, they are also pretty much active on Facebook and Twitter as well, garnering millions of likes and comments.
It would be really interesting to see, how much influence social media has on the results of general elections next year. Going by the trends till now, it seems none of the political parties will take any chance to miss the boat. Indian Social media users: Brace for more politics!

Source: Trak, M. Ghosh

Please contact us for Political survey and Social Campaign :-
info@leadtech.in or Visit: http://www.leadtech.in
01244113384/81