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Congress should stop this political hara-kiri, and appoint a non-Gandhi president – The Times of India Blog

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I had just finished a TV debate when within minutes, the same channel flashed my immediate suspension from the Congress party in gigantic fonts. Momentarily, I was stunned by the abruptness of it all; the Congress had a month earlier similarly dumped me as the national spokesperson with a cold brusque one-line dispatch. Clearly, I was committing perfidious acts that were deemed blasphemous by my Grand Old Party. If writing two op-eds in The Times of India (March 3 and June 7, 2020) that raised red flags on serious fault-lines within the party is an act of treachery, I am guilty of intransigence. If advocating a measured response to the cross-border military tensions with China is deemed as apostasy, I must apologise. If supporting the case of Sachin Pilot for Rajasthan CM makes me a BJP accessory, I humbly crave forgiveness. Honestly, Congress appears thin-skinned, intolerant of dissenting voices giving contrarian views, and demonstrating raging impatience with those having political ambitions. It legitimately accuses BJP of illiberal democracy, but encourages a similar imperious culture within. The luminous hypocrisy is showing. But most importantly, the Congress is suffering from delusions of grandeur and that could prove perilous if there is no immediate course correction. There are five factors that signal a blockbuster washout.

1. DECLINING VOTE SHARE
The Congress traditionally aggregated average vote-share of 45%, which peaked at 48.1% in 1984 (a black swan election because Mrs Indira Gandhi was assassinated just a few months earlier). Since then, there has been a precipitous decline. Just a decade later in 1998, the Congress had slumped to 25.8%,  nearly 50%  of its supporters had vaporised. Clearly, few paid heed. The UPA years saw a minor bump to 28.5% in 2009 (Dr Manmohan Singh’s middle-class romance flourished briefly), before the catastrophic fall in 2014 to 19.52%, a fall of 59.5% from 1984. Worryingly, a strategy to arrest the fall is non-existent.

2. LOST STATES
The Congress has virtually surrendered political space in key large states of India. It has not formed governments in the following states for decades: Uttar Pradesh (1989), Bihar (1990), West Bengal (1977), Tamil Nadu (1967),  Gujarat (1985) and Odisha (2000 ). These states add up to 247 Lok Sabha seats. The once formidable bastion of Andhra Pradesh of 40 seats can be added to the casualty list. We should not forget that it was after 15 years that Congress recaptured Madhya Pradesh (since magnanimously gifted back to the BJP) and Chhattisgarh. Who is accountable for the sustained underperformance and near extinction of the party in vote-rich states? The BJP often sarcastically dismisses the Congress as a “super regional party”.

3. NUMBER OF VOTERS STATIC
This statistic is probably the knock-out punch. Between 2004 (10.3 crore voters) to 2019 ( 11.9 crore voters), the Congress added a miserable incremental growth of 15% to its voter base. During the corresponding period, the BJP grew from 8.6 crore to 22.9 crore voters, a staggering 166% increase in new voters. This shows how the Congress lost the youth vote, one of the reasons behind its electoral losses of late.

4. POST-2019 SURRENDER
Following the devastating defeat of 2019, the Congress withdrew into a cocoon, allowing the BJP to get back into Karnataka (which just a year earlier had seen the Grand Alliance photo-op). But it was the political naivete in Madhya Pradesh that took the cake and the bakery, besides the defection of a huge political asset in Jyotiraditya Scindia. Gujarat, which in December 2017 was being hailed as the bearding of the lions (Narendra Modi and Amit Shah)  in their own den, has since haemorrhaged as well.  Rajasthan is the final nail in the coffin, a cavalier misadventure by the political leadership that has backfired. The Congress PhD thesis should be titled: Self-Destruction Assured in 10 Easy Steps!

5. LEADERSHIP VACUUM
Any organisation needs a continuous churn across hierarchies to remain fit. In the last 20 years, the Congress has had just two presidents and there have been no elections to the powerful Congress Working Committee since 1997. Since May 2019, it does not have a permanent president. Organisational atrophy is inevitable. The state of the party in Mumbai (the Congress was born here in 1885) reflects the shocking apathy towards India’s investment capital, industrial hub and entertainment industry; three significant constituencies in the political calculus. The ossified manner of working with a high-command taking decisions from a Delhi darbar is obsolete. A cunning cabal runs the party.
It can still be a serious competitor in 2024 but it does not have a moment to lose. It needs to take a bold call to signal its political intent; appoint a non-Gandhi Congress president and announce transparent internal elections. Perhaps after reading this article the party may decide to expel me altogether. But then everything has an end, only the sausage has two.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author’s own.

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Trump is consistently inconsistent on abortion and reproductive rights

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CHICAGO (AP) — Donald Trump has had a tough time finding a consistent message to questions about abortion and reproductive rights.

The former president has constantly shifted his stances or offered vague, contradictory and at times nonsensical answers to questions on an issue that has become a major vulnerability for Republicans in this year’s election. Trump has been trying to win over voters, especially women, skeptical about his views, especially after he nominated three Supreme Court justices who helped overturn the nationwide right to abortion two years ago.

The latest example came this week when the Republican presidential nominee said some abortion laws are “too tough” and would be “redone.”

“It’s going to be redone,” he said during a Fox News town hall that aired Wednesday. “They’re going to, you’re going to, you end up with a vote of the people. They’re too tough, too tough. And those are going to be redone because already there’s a movement in those states.”

Trump did not specify if he meant he would take some kind of action if he wins in November, and he did not say which states or laws he was talking about. He did not elaborate on what he meant by “redone.”

He also seemed to be contradicting his own stand when referencing the strict abortion bans passed in Republican-controlled states since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Trump recently said he would vote against a constitutional amendment on the Florida ballot that is aimed at overturning the state’s six-week abortion ban. That decision came after he had criticized the law as too harsh.

Trump has shifted between boasting about nominating the justices who helped strike down federal protections for abortion and trying to appear more neutral. It’s been an attempt to thread the divide between his base of anti-abortion supporters and the majority of Americans who support abortion rights.

About 6 in 10 Americans think their state should generally allow a person to obtain a legal abortion if they don’t want to be pregnant for any reason, according to a July poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Voters in seven states, including some conservative ones, have either protected abortion rights or defeated attempts to restrict them in statewide votes over the past two years.

Trump also has been repeating the narrative that he returned the question of abortion rights to states, even though voters do not have a direct say on that or any other issue in about half the states. This is particularly true for those living in the South, where Republican-controlled legislatures, many of which have been gerrymandered to give the GOP disproportionate power, have enacted some of the strictest abortion bans since Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Currently, 13 states have banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy, while four more ban it after six weeks — before many women know they’re pregnant.

Meanwhile, anti-abortion groups and their Republican allies in state governments are using an array of strategies to counter proposed ballot initiatives in at least eight states this year.

Here’s a breakdown of Trump’s fluctuating stances on reproductive rights.

Flip-flopping on Florida

On Tuesday, Trump claimed some abortion laws are “too tough” and would be “redone.”

But in August, Trump said he would vote against a state ballot measure that is attempting to repeal the six-week abortion ban passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

That came a day after he seemed to indicate he would vote in favor of the measure. Trump previously called Florida’s six-week ban a “terrible mistake” and too extreme. In an April Time magazine interview, Trump repeated that he “thought six weeks is too severe.”

Trump on vetoing a national ban

Trump’s latest flip-flopping has involved his views on a national abortion ban.

During the Oct. 1 vice presidential debate, Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social that he would veto a national abortion ban: “Everyone knows I would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it.”

This came just weeks after Trump repeatedly declined to say during the presidential debate with Democrat Kamala Harris whether he would veto a national abortion ban if he were elected.

Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, said in an interview with NBC News before the presidential debate that Trump would veto a ban. In response to debate moderators prompting him about Vance’s statement, Trump said: “I didn’t discuss it with JD, in all fairness. And I don’t mind if he has a certain view, but I don’t think he was speaking for me.”

‘Pro-choice’ to 15-week ban

Trump’s shifting abortion policy stances began when the former reality TV star and developer started flirting with running for office.

He once called himself “very pro-choice.” But before becoming president, Trump said he “would indeed support a ban,” according to his book “The America We Deserve,” which was published in 2000.

In his first year as president, he said he was “pro-life with exceptions” but also said “there has to be some form of punishment” for women seeking abortions — a position he quickly reversed.

At the 2018 annual March for Life, Trump voiced support for a federal ban on abortion on or after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

More recently, Trump suggested in March that he might support a national ban on abortions around 15 weeks before announcing that he instead would leave the matter to the states.

Views on abortion pills, prosecuting women

In the Time interview, Trump said it should be left up to the states to decide whether to prosecute women for abortions or to monitor women’s pregnancies.

“The states are going to make that decision,” Trump said. “The states are going to have to be comfortable or uncomfortable, not me.”

Democrats have seized on the comments he made in 2016, saying “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who have abortions.

Trump also declined to comment on access to the abortion pill mifepristone, claiming that he has “pretty strong views” on the matter. He said he would make a statement on the issue, but it never came.

Trump responded similarly when asked about his views on the Comstock Act, a 19th century law that has been revived by anti-abortion groups seeking to block the mailing of mifepristone.

IVF and contraception

In May, Trump said during an interview with a Pittsburgh television station that he was open to supporting regulations on contraception and that his campaign would release a policy on the issue “very shortly.” He later said his comments were misinterpreted.

In the KDKA interview, Trump was asked, “Do you support any restrictions on a person’s right to contraception?”

“We’re looking at that and I’m going to have a policy on that very shortly,” Trump responded.

Trump has not since released a policy statement on contraception.

Trump also has offered contradictory statements on in vitro fertilization.

During the Fox News town hall, which was taped Tuesday, Trump declared that he is “the father of IVF,” despite acknowledging during his answer that he needed an explanation of IVF in February after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law.

Trump said he instructed Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., to “explain IVF very quickly” to him in the aftermath of the ruling.

As concerns over access to fertility treatments rose, Trump pledged to promote IVF by requiring health insurance companies or the federal government to pay for it. Such a move would be at odds with the actions of much of his own party.

Even as the Republican Party has tried to create a national narrative that it is receptive to IVF, these messaging efforts have been undercut by GOP state lawmakers, Republican-dominated courts and anti-abortion leaders within the party’s ranks, as well as opposition to legislative attempts to protect IVF access.

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The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Saskatchewan Party’s Scott Moe, NDP’s Carla Beck react to debate |

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Saskatchewan‘s two main political party leaders faced off in the only televised debate in the lead up to the provincial election on Oct. 28. Saskatchewan Party Leader Scott Moe and NDP Leader Carla Beck say voters got a chance to see their platforms. (Oct. 17, 2024)

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Saskatchewan political leaders back on campaign trail after election debate

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REGINA – Saskatchewan‘s main political leaders are back on the campaign trail today after hammering each other in a televised debate.

Saskatchewan Party Leader Scott Moe is set to make an announcement in Moose Jaw.

Saskatchewan NDP Leader Carla Beck is to make stops in Regina, Saskatoon and Prince Albert.

During Wednesday night’s debate, Beck emphasized her plan to make life more affordable and said people deserve better than an out-of-touch Saskatchewan Party government.

Moe said his party wants to lower taxes and put money back into people’s pockets.

Election day is Oct. 28.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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