Elections in 2017 Part 3- The Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections

The term of the incumbent President Pranab Mukherjee ends on 24/07/2017. The term of the incumbent Vice-President Hamid Ansari ends a little later, on 10/08/2017. In 2012, the elections were held less than a week before the terms ended.

The electoral college for electing the President includes all elected (not nominated) MLAs and MPs of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. It is somewhat more complicated than that of the US, as MLAs of different states have different weightages determined by a complicated formula. See this for an explanation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(India)

For the Vice-Presidential election it is simpler, as the electorate consists of only the (elected) members of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. They have a single vote each, without the complication of weightages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_vice-presidential_election,_2012#Electoral_College

As we have discussed earlier, assembly elections to two major states (UP and Punjab) and three smaller states (UK, Goa and Manipur) will be held in the first few months of 2017. There may be significant changes in the party composition of the assemblies of UP and Punjab. It will be interesting to see the composition of the electoral college in July, and whether the NDA government will be able to get its preferred candidate elected.

As for the Vice-Presidential election, we know that the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha will not change significantly so the composition of the electoral college is virtually the same now. In fact, only the one Rajya Sabha seat from Goa may change hands by the time of the Vice-Presidential election, while elections for the 9 other Rajya Sabha seats are likely to be held later in August.

No serious proposals for candidates for these positions have been mentioned in the media so far.

Elections in 2017 Part 2-The Rajya Sabha

Supporters of the present NDA government often say that they are hampered by not having a majority in the Rajya Sabha. At least 10 Rajya Sabha seats are due for election  according to the schedule given below. Some more may fall vacant (for instance, Mithun Chakravarthy, a TC member from Bengal, has announced his resignation a few days back).

As we will see in a moment, there will be no significant change in the composition of the Rajya Sabha in 2017, regardless of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere.

This table was compiled from the official website of the Rajya Sabha, from where we can deduce who will retire in 2017.

http://164.100.47.5/newmembers/MemlistElDate.aspx

We get this list:

Only Goa’s Assembly will have changed while Gujarat and West Bengal would remain the same at the time of the Rajya Sabha elections in July-August.

In Goa, the one seat held by the INC may go to the BJP (or perhaps the AAP if something very peculiar happens).

In Bengal, the 6 seats are held by the Trinamul (4), INC (1) and CPM (1). Looking at the present constitution of the assembly these seats are likely to go to the same parties (though the CPM is the only one in some danger of losing its seat).

In Gujarat, the 3 seats going for election this year include 2 held by the BJP and 1 by the INC. The elections in August are likely to give the same result.

So one would have to look beyond 2017 to see any significant change in the composition of the Rajya Sabha.

Also, the elections for the President and Vice President are due in July and August respectively and will probably be held before the Rajya Sabha elections described above (though the results of the latter hardly matter).

It may be a source of worry to the NDA that they may not have sufficient strength in the electoral college to be sure of getting their preferred Presidential candidate elected. By then, the assembly elections for UP, Punjab and 3 smaller states will have taken place and present indications are that the NDA will not gain significantly.

This is also apparent for the Vice-Presidential election where the electoral college consists of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members only.

So 2017 will be a year of numerous elections but, barring some completely unexpected events, they may not result in significant changes to the relative strengths of the main parties and alliances.

 

Looking ahead to India’s elections in 2017-Part 1

These are the Assembly elections due to take place in 2017:

Knowing the end dates of the Assembly terms and the way that the Election Commission has handled things in the recent past, the approximate dates of polling can be predicted. It is too early to make serious predictions on the results.

I have included a column showing the number of Lok Sabha seats for each state. This is to keep things in perspective; even HP and UK do not account for even 1% of the Lok Sabha strength. Thus what happens in these states plus Goa and Manipur are not very significant on the national level. The real battleground is UP and Punjab now, and Gujarat later in the year.

So what difference do these results make to the larger picture? In terms of the Presidential election in July, not much. In terms of the composition of the Rajya Sabha, again not much because the seats up for election in 2017 are primarily from Bengal and Gujarat where there is not likely to be much change in the Rajya Sabha members elected. I will cover this in more detail later.

What is significant is the likelihood of a change in government in UP and Punjab, and probably Uttarakhand and Himachal as well. Even if there is a change in Goa and Manipur, it may not matter on the larger scale unless the AAP does unexpectedly well in Goa. What impact these changes will have on the functioning of the Central government are very speculative at the moment.

To be continued.

Jadeja and Nair’s record feats

It was clear that deciding the Man of the Match for this Test would be somewhat difficult. Finally the Crown Prince won at the expense of the Knight. We look at their records in this Test.

Highest innings by Asian batsmen against England (200 and more):

KK Nair’s 303* is the highest by any Asian batsman against England, surpassing the 274 by Zaheer Abbas in 1971. That remains the record for the highest by an Asian batsman in England. For India, the record is 221 by Gavaskar in 1979.

Nair’s 303* is also the highest for India vs England, surpassing the 235 by Virat Kohli earlier in this series and the 224 by VG Kambli in 1992-93.

Nair also became the third to make a triple century as his maiden century.

These are the highest maiden centuries (250 and above):

A dynamic link for all such scores of 200 and above:

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/records/230132.html

More detailed accounts of the innings of Sobers and Simpson can be seen here:

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2015/05/05/make-mine-a-double-no-a-triple/

https://abn397.wordpress.com/2015/05/10/make-mine-a-double-no-a-triple-part-2/

We now move on to Ravindra Jadeja’s all-round feat.

Here we have a complete list of those who scored a fifty and took 10 wickets in a Test:

This has been achieved on 26 occasions by 24 players. Jadeja is the only one to take 3 or more catches as well. The only other Indian to have scored a fifty and taken 10 wickets in a match is Kapil Dev. Only Botham, Imran and Shakib have scored a century and taken 10 wickets in a match. Earlier Davidson scored over 100 runs and took 10 wickets, but did not score a century.

The other main all-round feat is a century and five wickets in an innings, which is slightly more common. It has been achieved on 32 occasions by 25 players, including Mankad, Umrigar and Ashwin (twice).

On only three occasions have these players taken 3 catches as well: Mushtaq (1973), Botham (Feb 1978) and Kallis (2002).

Now for a few other contrived all-round records. Jadeja took 10 wickets in the match and 4 catches (of which one was a c & b). He is one of only 5 to achieve this:

10 wickets and 4 catches in a match:

And he is also part of a small group of 15 players who had an innings tally of 10 or more wickets and catches put together. 5 players have 11.

They are GA Lohmann, JM Noreiga, HJ Tayfield, AE Trott and LC Braund. 10 others including Jadeja have 10.

In Jadeja’s case, the one c & b meant he had a hand in 9 of the 10 wickets which fell. Only Dawson (b Mishra) evaded him.

Tail piece: While Karun Nair is nominally from Kerala, he was born in Jodhpur and has lived mainly in Bangalore.

The Devil’s scoreboard and other devilry

It had to happen one day in a Test: 666/6

On the 4th day of the India vs England Test at Chennai, 19 Dec 2016.

Meanwhile, here is the Devil’s own locomotive (picture credit Sachin Balwatkar). It is now homed at Sabarmati shed, and was homed at Mhow some years ago. There were also some 666* s homed at Golden Rock.

More from the Devil’s domain here: Hell, Norway:

And the railway station there:

You may think that God has some influence here:

However, this is Norwegian for “Goods dispatch”

In closing, there has to be at least one joke involving devils. Here is one from 2016, which refers to the US presidential election:

 

High scores by debutant tailenders

In the middle of the Chennai Test, we see Liam Dawson’s 66* on debut while batting at No 8. We look at similar performances by debutant tailenders.

These details are at the close of play on 17 Dec 2016.

60 or more by debutants batting at No 8:

Dawson’s 66* is the highest for England here, taking over the record from the father of a current player: 59 by DL Bairstow in 1979, which was also against India. That was the Oval Test where Gavaskar’s 221 brought India close to victory.

India does have one century by a debutant at No 8, by RH “Deepak” Shodhan who passed away earlier this year. India’s next highest in this category is Stuart Binny’s 78 in 2014. There are several who have done well against India in this category, headed by current NZ player JDS Neesham.

We also take a look at scores of 60 or more by debutants batting at No 8 to 11:

Neesham again heads this list, batting at No 8. Then there is Abul Hasan with 113, the highest at No 10, Agar with 98 which is the highest by ANY No 11 in Tests, and finally the now-forgotten BS Sandhu with 71, the highest at No 9. For India, RH Shodhan has the highest score by a debutant tailender with 110 at No 8.

Dawson’s 66* is also the highest for an England tailender on debut, just edging ahead of Darren Gough’s 65 in 1994.

Centuries on debut for and against India

Today we look at

1. Test players from India who scored a century on debut.
2. Test players who scored a century on debut, that Test being against India
3. Also those who scored a century AND duck on Test debut.

These figures are as on Jan 17, 2018

Indian players who scored a century on Test debut:

No Indian has achieved this against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. All other Test teams are represented here.

RG Sharma is one of the few to score centuries in his first two Test innings. Azharuddin is not in this category as he scored two centuries in his first three innings.

Those who scored a century on Test debut, that Test being against India:

Interesting that there are 14 members on each of these lists.

No Pakistani player has achieved this against India. All other Test teams are represented.

Finally, KK Jennings became the 4th player to score a century and duck on Test debut in late 2016. The full list is:

Note that Viswanath was the first to score a duck and century on debut.

There are also those who scored a century and an unbeaten zero on debut. An unbeaten zero is not considered as a duck. The only instance in all Tests is that of BR Taylor (105 and 0*) against India in 1965 noted above. That came about in a declaration with 9 wickets down: http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/62966.html

And Taylor remains the only one to score a century and take a five-for on Test debut.

Next time we will look at fivers and tenners on Test debut.

 

More about Indian Prime Ministers

A tabulation of basic biographical and geographical details of persons who have been Prime Ministers of India, including the Acting ones. This may answer any doubts you may have had from the previous post.

Note that V.P. Singh was known as the Raja of Manda, though this was a zamindari estate and not a princely state.

Also to confirm that even some official websites have confusing information, even if they are produced by the Lok Sabha themselves. Gulzarilal Nanda was MP from Sabarkantha (Gujarat) when he was Acting PM and was later MP from Kaithal (Haryana). He also lived for a slightly longer time than Morarji Desai, but still missed crossing a century.

prime-ministers

Places associated with India’s Prime Ministers

Here are a few stations associated with various Indian Prime Ministers. Not all PMs have been included, including Dr Manmohan Singh whose birthplace Gah is over 80 km from the nearest currently functioning station (Rawalpindi). The only person recorded as Acting PM may also appear here.

The places mentioned below are either the birthplace or favorite constituency or a place associated with the person.

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Should not be too difficult to guess, even though one place is now in Pakistan. There may be more than one picture for one person.