'We are happy that the money has come to us immediately after it was announced.' 'For once, the government did what it promised.'
Erroneous payments were made to 77,980 women and 12,431 men, many of whom did not qualify for the scheme's benefits.
'I wonder if they will keep it up after the elections.' 'I fear they'll start questioning eligibility -- income, age, bank accounts -- and eventually stop the scheme altogether.'
'That was my mistake.' 'Gautam Adani was not involved in forming the Maharashtra government.' 'Adani was not there in the meeting.' 'The meeting was at his guest house and we were sitting in his guest house.'
'If there is Sabka Saath, then why are you only talking about Hindu-Muslim?'
The Maharashtra municipal elections showed a troubling shift, where votes were traded for cash, convictions no longer mattered, and ideology became an afterthought, observes Ramesh Menon.
'If someone fiddles us on our religion then we will pay back five times more to that person. We have proved that time and again.'
'Pro-incumbency worked big time for the ruling party.' 'It has never happened in the past of pro-incumbency working so much for the ruling party.'
'Now there is no fight between us (Thackerays); now the fight is with them.'
'These children possess catastrophically low birth weights -- often 1.4 kgs or less. Such extremely low birth weight results in profoundly compromised neo-natal immunity.' 'The escalation to 97 deaths in three months precipitated contemporary attention precisely because this magnitude concentrates the humanitarian emergency, rendering it impossible for the administrative machinery to ignore.'
'For politicians, winning the next election has become more important than economic stability of the country and broader national interest.'
In doing so, it further cemented the community's determination to support the opposition. But at the same time, it consolidated its Hindu vote bank like never before.
'Money power was deployed like an army in a war.' 'None of the MVA parties had that kind of money.'
A freebie once granted can hardly be discontinued. All that can happen is to substitute it with a bigger freebie, notes A K Bhattacharya.
'How can the voting percentage be higher than the actual polled votes?'
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