2013 Election Tracker Survey: Maharashtra

Maharashtra has become a two horse race since the 1990s with the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party on one side and the Bharatiya Janata Party-Shiv Sena combine on the other side, but in Gujarat it has been a saffron wave that has swept away all the opposition for nearly two decades. According to the CSDS-CNN-IBN Election Tracker survey, the situation has not changed much in the two states since the last Lok Sabha elections in 2009.

While the Congress-NCP alliance got 39 per cent of the votes in the 2009 polls, the combine will get the support of 43 per cent voters if elections are held in July 2013. But the alliance has not seen a big jump in the number of seats and will send 23-27 MPs from the state. In the 2009 polls, the alliance won 25 seats. The BJP-Shiv Sena alliance will get 18-22 seats while the MNS and others are likely to win 0-2 and 0-4 seats respectively.

Almost 35 per cent of the respondents in Maharashtra say that the Congress-NCP should continue alliance in the next Lok Sabha polls but 20 per cent of the respondents want both parties to contest Lok Sabha polls separately.

The satisfaction level with the Congress-NCP government has gone up to 64 per cent in 2013 from 55 per cent in 2011 and the dissatisfaction level, too, is down to 29 per cent in 2013 from 32 per cent in 2011, which should come as a relief to the ruling coalition.

According to 55 per cent voters the Shiv Sena, which is an ally of the BJP, should fight the next Lok Sabha election in partnership with the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) while an overwhelming 70 per cent Sena supporters say that the two parties should come together.

Though MNS chief Raj Thackeray may garner negative headlines for his hard-line politics, 48 per cent of the respondents feel that he is the most suitable leader to take forward late Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray's legacy.

Uddhav Thackeray, who is currently heading the Shiv Sena, is only preferred by 18 per cent people with even 57 per cent of the Shiv Sena supporters backing Raj Thackeray.

In Pictures:-

See Also:-

2013 Election Tracker Survey: State Scan - "Gujarat"

2013 Election Tracker Survey: State Scan - "Uttar Pradesh"

2013 Election Tracker Survey: State Scan - "Madhya Pradesh"

2013 Election Tracker Survey: State Scan - "Maharashtra"

2013 Election Tracker Survey: State Scan - "Andhra Pradesh"

2013 Election Tracker Survey: State Scan - "Tamil Nadu"

2013 Election Tracker Survey: State Scan - "Bihar"

2013 Election Tracker Survey: State Scan - "West Bengal"

2013 Election Tracker Survey: Nitish prefer for PM in non-Cong,non-BJP

2013 Election Tracker Survey: UPA-II more corrupt

2013 Election Tracker Survey (in General)

Road accident deaths in India: Tamil Nadu leads

            As many as 1,39,091 persons lost their lives in 4,40,042 road accidents in the country last year. According to statistics released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 1,18,533 of the victims were male. They include 11,571 pedestrians. The 28 States together accounted for 1,36,771 deaths and the seven Union Territories for the remaining.

Tamil Nadu tops the list of with 16,175 deaths in 67,757 accidents, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 15,109 deaths in 24,478 accidents. Andhra Pradesh is third with 14,966 deaths in 39,344 accidents and Maharashtra fourth with 13,936 deaths in 45,247 accidents. The Capital city of Delhi accounts for 1,866 deaths in 6,937 accidents. The UT of Lakshadweep is the only administrative division where no road accidents have taken place. It has 9,000 registered vehicles as on December 31, 2012.

#	State/UT	No of accidents	No of deaths
1	Tamil Nadu	67, 757	16, 175
2	Uttar Pradesh	24, 478	15, 109
3	Andhra Pradesh	39, 344	14, 966
4	Maharashtra	45, 247	13, 936

Accidents involving two wheelers accounted for the largest number of deaths — 32,318 or 23.2 per cent — followed by lorries — 26,678 (19.2%). Bicycles accounted for 3069 deaths.

The death toll in 2012 is 2,257 more than in 2011 — an increase of 1.6%. In 2011 too, Tamil Nadu led the country with 15,422 deaths in 65,873 accidents. Andhra Pradesh was second that year with 15,158 deaths in 41,066 accidents. Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Karnataka accounted for 15.4%, 10.3% and 10.1% of the road accidents in the country. They also reported the largest number of road accidents each month of the year in 2012. Delhi reported the most number of road accidents among the Union Territories. In fact, its road accidents figure in 2012 stands above those of 14 States.

The rate of accidental deaths per thousand vehicles in 2012 was the highest in Bihar and West Bengal at 1.9 each, followed by Himachal Pradesh with 1.8, Andhra Pradesh 1.5 and Jammu & Kashmir 1.5, compared to 1.0 at the national level. The rate of deaths per 100 cases of accidents was the highest in Nagaland (133.3), followed by Punjab (75.8) and Mizoram (70.0), compared to 31.6 at the national level.

The number of road accidents in 2012 showed only a marginal decrease of 0.02 per cent compared to 2011. In 2011, there were 4,40,123 road accidents. Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra accounted for 11.6%, 10.9%, 10.8% and 10.0% of the deaths in road accidents in 2012.

Most of the accidents (73,672 cases or 16.7 per cent) took place between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. Between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., there were 73,070 cases (16.6 per cent). Roads were comparatively safer between 12 midnight and 3 a.m., when there were only 29,483 cases (6.3 per cent). The statistics also show that the largest number of accidents (38,920) took place in the month of May last year.

Related Links:-

National Crime Records Bureau: 2011-12

Arunachal Pradesh goes 'missing' from geography textbook

The decades-old India-China border dispute over Arunachal Pradesh has cast its shadow on the geography textbook for 10th grade in Maharashtra. In a major gaffe, the north-eastern State, which China says is part of its territory, has been omitted from the map of India in the textbook, printed by Balbharti, bureau of textbook production, and used by more than 15 lakh students affiliated to the Maharashtra State Board.

The erroneous map shows Arunachal Pradesh as not only “missing” from the country’s territorial domain but also as being part of Chinese territory. Taking a serious note of the lapse, the State government sought a clarification from the Chairman of the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education. Minister for School Education Rajendra Darda said that, the government has sought a clarification from the Board Chairman asking him to explain how this error came about. Officials of the Board of Secondary and Higher Education were unavailable for comments.

Interestingly, Maharashtra is being ruled by Congress government.

Related Links:-
India should allow stapled visa for Arunachal to China

A urinal dedicated to politician Ajit Pawar by opponents

He has called it "the biggest mistake of his political life" but Ajit Pawar, the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, isn't being forgiven for mocking the water and power problems defeating the state's farmers.

A urinal in Jalna, a part of Marathwada mangled by drought, has been named after the leader, retribution for his asking sarcastically "should we urinate" when discussing the poverty of water.

A poster on the urinal, put up by Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party, says: "AJIT URINAL, Aam Aadmi Party Jalna protests Ajit Pawar's statement of offering urine to the parched, drought stricken people." At a rally, Mr. Pawar had ridiculed a man who has spent nearly two months on a hunger strike, demanding that the state release water for his farm and others. He had said that, ‘there is this person from Solapur, sitting on hunger strike for 55 days demanding water be released from the dam. But where are we going to get water from? Should we urinate? And when we don't have water to drink, it's hard to pass urine as well’.

Related links:

Can we urinate dam if no water - Deputy CM; it's reactions