NEW DELHI: India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi failed to make gains in four recent state elections, according to preliminary voting trends released Sunday by the independent Election Commission, indicating his Hindu nationalist party’s political strength may be slipping as the country struggles to contain an unprecedented surge in coronavirus cases.
The Election Commission’s vote forecast showed the Bharatiya Janata Party trailing in West Bengal state behind a powerful regional party, apparently unable to dislodge the state’s firebrand chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, after a hard-fought campaign.
Modi’s party looks set to retain power in the northeastern Assam state for a second term, but failed to pick up any significant gains there or make inroads in two southern states, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Final results will be released late Sunday.
Even before the current virus surge, Modi’s party faced stiff challenges in these local legislative elections. Following the disappointing results, Modi stands weakened but faces no threats to staying on as prime minister until his term ends in 2024.
“The BJP started running out of steam as the pandemic spread,” said political analyst Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
“The verdict in West Bengal state will definitely weaken Modi’s position,” he added, but cautioned that further study of the results was needed in order to say how much they were a referendum on the BJP’s handling of the COVID-19 outbreak.
With 70% of the vote counted in West Bengal, the rival All India Trinamool Congress party could win 211 out of 292 seats in the state legislature — having won 21 seats so far and leading in anther 190. That’s compared to potentially just 80 seats for the BJP, which has won three seats outright and leads in 77.
In Assam’s 125-seat state legislature, the BJP and its allies are ahead in the race for 75 seats, compared to 49 seats tipping toward its main challengers.
Supporters of the All India Trinamool Congress party — many without masks and ignoring social distancing guidelines — held victory celebrations and set off firecrackers in West Bengal after the initial results were released.
Health experts say the massive electoral rallies and marches held as voters cast their ballots in March and April are partly to blame for the subsequent spike in COVID-19 infections. Public anger for allowing the elections to go forward despite the risk has been directed at both Modi’s government and the Election Commission.
Last week, the High Court in Tamil Nadu state slammed the Election Commission for allowing crowded campaigns in the middle of a global pandemic. India’s daily new virus cases began rising past 100,000 in late March, and above 300,000 daily new cases on April 21, collapsing India’s tattered health care system.
“Your institution is singularly responsible for the second wave of COVID-19. Your officers should be booked on murder charges probably,” the court said.
Polly Roy, a professor of virology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said last week that India’s extremely dense population and the government’s lax rules about election rallies and religious gatherings fueled the outbreak. Experts have also blamed new, more contagious virus variants.
Nationwide, death is so omnipresent that burial grounds are running out of space in many cities, and glowing funeral pyres blaze through the night. With the government unable to maintain a steady supply of oxygen to overwhelmed hospitals, desperate relatives plead for oxygen outside or weep in the street for loved ones who died waiting for treatment.
On Sunday, India recorded a slight drop in new infections with 392,488, down from a high of 401,993 in the previous 24 hours. It also reported 3,689 additional deaths, bringing the total number of fatalities to 215,542. Experts believe both figures are an undercount.
Modi’s party soared in Hindu-dominated regions in central and northern India since he was elected in 2014. The recent local elections were seen as crucial for the party to gain a foothold in three states that have sizeable minority Muslim populations. The Hindu nationalist BJP has for years been accused of stoking religious polarization and discriminating against minorities.
The prime minister also wants to project the BJP as a national party, replacing a dynastic Congress party that governed India for more than six decades after independence from British rule in 1947. The Congress party, led by Sonia Gandhi, did poorly in the recent elections, failing to capture power from the BJP in Assam or from Communist parties in Kerala.
Modi’s party takes electoral hit amid virus surge
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Modi’s party takes electoral hit amid virus surge
- Even before the current virus surge, Modi’s party faced stiff challenges in these local legislative elections
- Modi stands weakened but faces no threats to staying on as prime minister until his term ends in 2024
Ground invasion of Rafah would be ‘intolerable,’ UN chief warns
- Israel has killed more than 34,700 Palestinians, around two-thirds of them children and women, according to Gaza health officials
UNITED NATIONS, United States: A ground invasion of Rafah would be “intolerable,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday, calling on Israel and Hamas “to go an extra mile” to reach a ceasefire deal.
“This is an opportunity that cannot be missed, and a ground invasion in Rafah would be intolerable because of its devastating humanitarian consequences, and because of its destabilizing impact in the region,” Guterres said as he received Italian President Sergio Mattarella.
UK military personnel’s data accessed in hack, BBC reports
- MPs could be informed about the development in the Commons on Tuesday
Some personal information in a payroll system used by Britain’s defense department has been accessed in a data breach, the BBC reported on Monday.
The system was managed by an external contractor and no operational Ministry of Defense data was obtained, the broadcaster said, adding that the department took the system off-line immediately.
Information like names and bank details of current and some former members of the Royal Navy, Army and Air Force was compromised, according to the report.
The Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to a Reuters’ request for comment outside working hours.
MPs could be informed about the development in the Commons on Tuesday, the report added.
Russia says it takes control of two more settlements in eastern Ukraine
- Russia has made slow but steady advances since taking Avdiivka in February, with a string of villages in the area falling to Moscow’s forces
MOSCOW: Russian forces have taken control of the settlements of Soloviove in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region and Kotliarivka further north in the Kharkiv region, the defense ministry said on Monday.
Ukraine’s military made no mention of either locality in its evening General Staff report. Kharkiv Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Monday that Kotliarivka, located near the town of Kupiansk, was one of several locations to come under Russian shelling.
But Ukrainian bloggers appeared to acknowledge that both villages were in Russian hands.
DeepState, a popular forum on the war, noted on Saturday that Kotliarivka had been captured by Russian forces and on Sunday said the neighboring village of Kyslivka was also in Russian hands.
DeepState reported that Soloviove, northwest of the Russian-held town of Avdiivka, had been taken by Russian forces last week.
Russia has made slow but steady advances since taking Avdiivka in February, with a string of villages in the area falling to Moscow’s forces.
UNICEF warns 600,000 children face ‘catastrophe’ in Rafah
- Calling again for a ceasefire and safe access for humanitarian organizations, the agency highlighted there are some 78,000 infants under age two sheltering in the city, along with 175,000 children under five who are affected by infectious disease
- Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory
NEW YORK: Some 600,000 children packed into Gaza’s Rafah city face “further catastrophe,” UNICEF warned on Monday, urging against their forced relocation after Israel ordered an evacuation ahead of its long-threatened ground invasion.
“Given the high concentration of children in Rafah ... UNICEF is warning of a further catastrophe for children, with military operations resulting in very high civilian casualties and the few remaining basic services and infrastructure they need to survive being totally destroyed,” the UN children’s agency said in a statement.
It said Gaza’s youth were already “on the edge of survival,” with many in Rafah — where the agency said the population has soared to 1.2 million people, half of them children — already displaced multiple times and with nowhere else to go.
“More than 200 days of war have taken an unimaginable toll on the lives of children,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“Rafah is now a city of children, who have nowhere safe to go in Gaza,” she said, warning that a large-scale military operation by Israel would bring “chaos and panic, and at a time where (children’s) physical and mental states are already weakened.”
UNICEF estimates that Rafah’s population has swelled to nearly five times its normal figure of 250,000 residents.
Calling again for a ceasefire and safe access for humanitarian organizations, the agency highlighted there are some 78,000 infants under age two sheltering in the city, along with 175,000 children under five who are affected by infectious disease.
Gaza’s bloodiest-ever war began following Hamas’s unprecedented Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Israel has conducted a retaliatory offensive that has killed at least 34,735 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run
territory’s Health Ministry.
Of that toll, more than 14,000 are children, the ministry has said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to send ground troops into Rafah regardless of any truce, despite concerns from the US, other countries, and aid groups.
Hamas official Izzat Al-Rashiq said in a statement that any Israeli operation in Rafah would put the truce talks in jeopardy.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said the evacuation order was a “dangerous escalation” that would have consequences.
“The US administration, alongside the occupation, bears responsibility for this terrorism,” the official said.
Hamas said later in a statement that any offensive in Rafah would not be a “picnic” for Israeli forces and said it was fully prepared to defend Palestinians there.
Aid agencies have warned that the evacuation order will lead to an even worse humanitarian disaster in the crowded coastal enclave of 2.3 million people reeling from seven months of war.
“Forcing 1 million displaced Palestinians from Rafah to evacuate without a safe destination is not only unlawful but would lead to catastrophic consequences,” British charity ActionAid said.
Nick Maynard, a British surgeon trying to leave Gaza on Monday, said in a voice message from the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing into Egypt: “Two huge bombs have just gone off immediately outside the crossing. There’s a lot of gunfire as well about 100 meters from us. We are very unclear whether we will get out.”
“Driving through Rafah, the tension was palpable with people evacuating as rapidly as they could.”
Witnesses said the areas in and around Rafah where Israel wants to move people are already crowded with little room for more tents.
“The biggest genocide, the biggest catastrophe, will take place in Rafah. I call on the whole Arab world to interfere for a ceasefire — let them interfere and save us from what we are in,” said Aminah Adwan, a displaced Palestinian.
Israel has been threatening to launch incursions in Rafah, which it says harbors thousands of Hamas fighters and potentially dozens of hostages.
Victory is impossible without taking Rafah, it says.
New York’s Columbia University cancels graduation ceremony as students remain defiant
- Pro-Palestinian protests put paid to event planned for May 15
NEW YORK: New York’s prestigious Columbia University has announced that it is canceling its main graduation ceremony, scheduled for next week, because of ongoing pro-Palestinian protests.
The announcement on Monday is the latest development in a movement that began nearly three weeks ago at Columbia and has swept college campuses nationwide.
The graduation ceremony had been scheduled for May 15 on the south lawn of the Manhattan campus, where protest encampments had been based before authorities dismantled them last week.
The Ivy League institution said it would “forego the university-wide ceremony” and hold a series of smaller events instead.
“We are determined to give our students the celebration they deserve, and that they want,” Columbia announced, saying “smaller-scale, school-based celebrations are most meaningful to them and their families.”
The university added: “We will focus our resources on those school ceremonies and on keeping them safe, respectful, and running smoothly. A great deal of effort is already underway to reach that goal.”
Students across the US have protested and set up tents at dozens of universities to register their opposition to the war in Gaza, while calling on President Joe Biden to do more to stop the bloodshed.
They have also demanded their institutions cease supporting companies that support Israel’s government.
Maya James, a psychology student at Columbia, told Arab News: “Seeing the university’s really insane response to student protests has brought so many people together, because I feel like most people on this campus can agree, including faculty, that students should not be penalized for expressing their First Amendment rights to protest, to petition, to do all of these things we’ve been encouraged to do for so long.”
She called on the university to give amnesty to students who had been suspended for expressing their First Amendment rights, which protect freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and the right to petition.
James also called on the university to disclose its investments because as “of right now there’s no visibility for us students to be able to know what the university is expected to do.”
She described the “vibes” at the protest sites as “absolutely remarkable,” with cultural and educational programs being offered and all kinds of activities being held.
She said the demonstrations were a continuation of Columbia’s long tradition of protest which began in the 1960s with its opposition to the involvement of the US in the Vietnam War.
James said it was “incredible” to see the solidarity for the Palestinian cause spread in campuses across the US, and people pushing to ensure “that we do indeed see a free Palestine within our lifetime and that our universities are no longer complicit in the genocide.”
Demonstrators have gathered on at least 40 US university campuses since April 17, often erecting tent camps to protest against the soaring death toll in the Gaza Strip. Nearly 2,000 people have been detained, according to the US media.
Police officers have forcibly ended several student sit-ins in recent days, including one at New York University at the request of its administrators.
Demonstrators had barricaded themselves inside Columbia, the epicenter of student protests in New York, and some complained about police brutality when officers cleared the faculty.
(With Agencies)
