Tag: Tennis court

On Tuesday, results from a hard-fought election in south India’s Karnataka state were announced, showing neither prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), nor the incumbent Congress party, had won enough seats to govern outright. In response, Congress and a smaller regional ally ordered at least 40 of their MPs onto buses, where they were shipped to the five-star Eagleton Resort and locked inside – beyond the reach of BJP negotiators. “You build a wall around your legislators so that the other party doesn’t encroach on them,” says BK Chandrashekhar, a Congress leader and former minister in several Karnataka state governments. Protecting them, but also making sure they don’t escape.” The aftermath of Tuesday’s hung parliament has shown Indian politics at its rawest. Congress alleges BJP officials soon flooded the hotel trying to make contact with legislators. In India, ideology has been cast to the wind. Ideas are simply never part of the equation.” Discrimination kills 230,000 girls under five in India each year, study shows Read more Some members of Indian parliaments regularly switch parties at election time depending on the political winds. Karnataka is a particularly egregious example of the trend: a decade ago about 63% of of MPs in the state were “crorepatis” – worth more than 1 crore, or £100,000. This year 97% of MPs boast that wealth, and half are worth ten times more. So when elections are tight, instead of appealing to loyalty or ideology, party officials prefer to herd their MPs into resorts, where they wile days away at the buffet and pool.