BJP retains Karnataka, set to win 12 bypoll seats under CM Yeddiyurappa

The ruling BJP on Monday retained majority in the Karnataka Assembly when it bagged six seats in the byelections in which it was also leading in an equal number in other segments where counting is underway.

The BJP's good show in 12 seats comes as a morale booster for the saffron party after it's setback in Maharashtra.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, addressing a poll meeting in Jharkhand, hailed the BJP's performance and accused the Congress of stealing the people's mandate in Karnataka through the back door, contending it has been taught a lesson in the just-concluded bypolls.

The Congress, which won 12 of those 15 seats in the 2018 assembly polls, was leading only in two segments -- Hunsur and Shivajinagar, while its former ally the JD(S) trailed in all the 12 seats it contested.

Independent candidate Sharath Bachegowda, who was earlier expelled from the BJP for anti-party activities after he contested the bypoll as a rebel, was heading for a win in Hoskote.

The six BJP candidates who won are: Arabail Shivaram Hebbar (Yellapura), Narayana Gowda (K R Pete), B C Patil (Hirekerur), Shrimant Patil (Kagwad), Mahesh Kumthalli (Athani) and K Sudhakar (Chikkaballapura).

BJP promises 5 cr jobs, housing for all in Maharashtra poll manifesto

The BJP on Tuesday released its manifesto for the upcoming Maharashtra polls, promising a $1 trillion economy for the state with the creation of five crore jobs in next five years and houses for all by 2022.

BJP working president J P Nadda released the manifesto, or the 'Sankalpapatra', here along with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, state party president Chandrakant Patil and Mumbai unit head Mangal Prabhat Lodha.

The manifesto has promised creation of five crore jobs in next five years, taking the state's economy to $1 trillion.

It has also assured houses for all by 2022.

One of the other key takeaways of the manifesto is setting up a separate maintenance department for the national and state highways, where repairs and other works are currently done by the road construction contractors.

While releasing the manifesto, Nadda lavished praise on Fadnavis, saying "the chief minister has changed the political culture of Maharashtra".

Maharashtra was earlier called as the state "full of corruption", but now it is known as "free of corruption", he said.

The chief minister's seat had earlier become a "musical chair", but Fadnavis provided a stable government, he said.

The Marathwada drinking water grid project worth Rs 16,000 crore has also found place in the manifesto.

The BJP has promised to connect all 11 dams in the perennially parched Marathwada region, and provide drinking water supply with the help of a closed pipeline.

It has also promised to invest Rs five lakh crore in several infrastructure projects in the state.

Polling for all 288 Assembly seats in the state will be held on October 21 and counting of votes will take place on October 24.

BJP protests over worker deaths paralyse work at Coal India mines in Odisha

Members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have mounted protests that have paralysed production at one of India's biggest coalfields following a deadly accident last week.

The BJP workers have been staging sit-down protests and waving flags at state-run Coal India Ltd's mines in Odisha, demanding a safety audit of all mines in the region.

Rescue officials said they have recovered the bodies of three workers who were trapped inside the mine in Odisha's Angul district after a landslide on Tuesday, and are trying to recover another body from inside the mine.

Kalandi Samal, a local BJP leader who is leading the protests, said the demonstrations will continue until authorities ensure safety measures to prevent such tragedies and ensure adequate compensation to the victims.

"We demand specific guidelines on safety audits of mines," Samal said.

Production at Odisha state's Talcher coalfields, which account for at least an eighth of Coal India's annual production, has not resumed after the accident, said Dikken Mehra, a spokesman for Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd, a unit of Coal India.

State-run Coal India has a near monopoly on the coal industry in India, producing more than four-fifths of the country's coal output.

"The forced stoppage of all the mines at Talcher has resulted in a cumulative loss of 842,000 tonnes of coal production," Mehra told Reuters, adding that the company has suffered a loss of about 856.8 million rupees ($12.43 million).

Srinivas Khuntia, a senior leader at BJP-affiliated trade union Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, called the protests "unjustified, especially when its own government is in power".

"There is no justification why you would stop all the mining operations," Khuntia told Reuters.

Though deaths at coal mines in India have come down over time, it remains one of the most dangerous countries to be a coal miner, with one worker dying every seven days on average in state-run mines in 2018.

In addition, thousands of workers, including children, have been killed in illegal rat-hole mines that are notorious for their poor safety record, with many accidents going unreported.

"We are in talks with all the stakeholders to resolve the issues as soon as possible," Mehra said, without divulging details on the timeframe for resumption of production.

Coal India is trying to divert supplies from elsewhere to ensure coal availability at utilities and companies that normally rely on the Odisha coalfields.

Those entities include state-owned NTPC Ltd, India's biggest electricity generator, as well as the state-owned National Aluminium Company Ltd (NALCO).

"Production will be affected if the mines remain shut for more days," said Tapan Kumar Chand, chairman of NALCO.

Chowkidar effect: BJP mops up bulk of private security donations

With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) mobilising itself on social media and on the ground by invoking the chowkidar (watchman) tag, the move has both political and business underpinnings. For one, private security companies -– a booming sector in India -- have donated varying amounts of money to the BJP.

A look at the contribution reports of political parties shows that while real estate companies donated both to BJP and Congress, private security sector donations were unique to the BJP. In 2017-18 at least seven private security companies donated to a sum of almost Rs 61 lakh to the party. The biggest donor among these was Security & Intelligence Service (SIS) – one India’s biggest private security companies. It donated Rs 50 lakh to BJP in 2017-18. There were other small security companies which donated as little as Rs 21,000 to the saffron party. Although donations by private security companies are unique to BJP, they are a drop in the ocean of Rs 438 crore donations received by the party in 2017-18.

High-profile BJP supporters like Baba Ramdev have also taken to the private security business. Ramdev started Parakram Security in 2017 and has been actively recruiting private security guards and training them at their facility in Haridwar.

A November 2017 Ficci report estimated that India’s Rs 57,000 crore private security market could touch Rs 99,000 crore by 2020. The private security industry in India employs 8.5 million people. In January 2017, the Modi government also recategorised private security workers as skilled under the Minimum Wages Act. Earlier they were classified as semi-skilled workers. With this, the minimum wages of private security guards (or the watch and ward sector) has shot up to Rs 667 a day from Rs 247 a day, which has made the industry attractive to youth especially from India’s rural areas. The report states that the private security industry in the country will generate around three million additional jobs by 2020.