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Akhilesh Yadav to meet Mayawati for seat-sharing in LS polls tomorrow
Lucknow: Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav and BSP chief Mayawati will address a joint press meet in Uttar Pradesh state capital on Saturday, amid talks of seat-sharing for Lok Sabha polls from which the Congress seems to be almost out.
This joint press conference will be held at posh Gomtinagar based Taj hotel in Lucknow was announced on Friday by SP national secretary Rajendra Chaudhary and Bahujan Samaj Party national general secretary SC Misra.
The top leadership of both the parties had met in New Delhi recently to discuss broad parameters of an alliance to take on the BJP unitedly in the Lok Sabha elections.
The joint press conference will be the first after the parties gave contours of an electoral alliance ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The two party chiefs had given their “in principle” approval to the alliance, which has virtually shut its doors to the Congress in the state.
Sources said that both the SP and the BSP are planning to contest on 37 seats each out of the 80 on offer in Uttar Pradesh and plan to leave just two, Rae Bareli and Amethi, the bastions of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi for the Congress.
Smaller parties like the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and the Nishad Party are also likely to be in the alliance. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP and its allies had won 73 of the 80 seats in UP.
Congress leaders like PL Punia, who delivered Chhattisgarh to the Congress as its state in-charge, and UPCC chief Raj Babbar are reportedly of the view that the Congress should not “be sheepish in alliance negotiations any more” and should seek its pound of flesh.
They cite the example of 2009 when the Congress romped home with 22 Lok Sabha seats in UP, surprising many prophets of doom.
With LS polls in mind Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati meeting for seat-sharing in joint press conference:
They also say that with party chief Rahul Gandhi getting more “combative, direct and effective” in taking on the Modi juggernaut, the Congress stood better chances in going alone.
Over the week, Yadav and Mayawati also put out press statements that specifically referred to the word “gathbandhan”.
Mayawati’s press statement was in solidarity with Yadav amid reports that the CBI might question him on investigations into a mining scam that allegedly took place when he was chief minister. “Don’t be shaken,” she advised him.
Yadav returned the favour when he put out a press release to condemn Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks at a rally in Agra on Mayawati, “forgetting” an attack on her by Samajwadi Party workers in 1995 for “political gains”. “The PM is scared of the alliance,” said Yadav.
In Agra, Modi sought to drive a wedge between the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party when he said that the two parties which could not see eye to eye were joining hands.
Last year, Yadav and Mayawati decided to bury their differences and pool in their resources to contest three bypolls and won all. It gave them hope that if they team up, they can pull voters away from the BJP.
The mahagathbandhan arithmetic had worked in the bypolls as a consolidation of OBC, Dalit and Muslim votes powered joint opposition candidates to victory in Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Kairana last year.
If they try to replicate their success in the 2019 national polls, it might upset the apple cart of the BJP, which recently lost three major state elections, feel analysts.
A senior BJP leader, when contacted, sought to play down the SP-BSP tie-up as “opportunistic” politics and expressed confidence that the saffron party will come out with flying colours on the plank of development as it believed in ‘sab ka saath, sab ka vikas’.
The State Scores Extra High on Gaming-Friendly Industry Index
Meghalaya scored 92.85 out of 100 possible points in a Gaming Industry Index and proved to be India’s most gaming-friendly state following its recent profound legislation changes over the field allowing land-based and online gaming, including games of chance, under a licensing regime.
The index by the UK India Business Council (UKIBC) uses a scale of 0 to 100 to measure the level of legalisation on gambling and betting achieved by a state based on the scores over a set of seven different games – lottery, horse racing, betting on sports, poker, rummy, casino and fantasy sports
Starting from February last year, Meghalaya became the third state in India’s northeast to legalise gambling and betting after Sikkim and Nagaland. After consultations with the UKIBC, the state proceeded with the adoption of the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Act, 2021 and the nullification of the Meghalaya Prevention of Gambling Act, 1970. Subsequently in December, the Meghalaya Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021 were notified and came into force.
All for the Tourists
The move to legalise and license various forms of offline and online betting and gambling in Meghalaya is aimed at boosting tourism and creating jobs, and altogether raising taxation revenues for the northeastern state. At the same time, the opportunities to bet and gamble legally will be reserved only for tourists and visitors.
“We came out with a Gaming Act and subsequently framed the Regulation of Gaming Rules, 2021. The government will accordingly issue licenses to operate games of skill and chance, both online and offline,” said James P. K. Sangma, Meghalaya State Law and Taxation Minister speaking in the capital city of Shillong. “But the legalized gambling and gaming will only be for tourists and not residents of Meghalaya,” he continued.
To be allowed to play, tourists and people visiting the state for work or business purposes will have to prove their non-resident status by presenting appropriate documents, in a process similar to a bank KYC (Know Your Customer) procedure.
Meghalaya Reaches Out to a Vast Market
With 140 millions of people in India estimated to bet regularly on sports, and a total of 370 million desi bettors around prominent sporting events, as per data from one of the latest reports by Esse N Videri, Meghalaya is set to reach out and take a piece of a vast market.
Estimates on the financial value of India’s sports betting market, combined across all types of offline channels and online sports and cricket predictions and betting platforms, speak about amounts between $130 and $150 billion (roughly between ₹9.7 and ₹11.5 lakh crore).
Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Delhi are shown to deliver the highest number of bettors and Meghalaya can count on substantial tourists flow from their betting circles. The sports betting communities of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana are also not to be underestimated.
Among the sports, cricket is most popular, registering 68 percent of the total bet count analyzed by Esse N Videri. Football takes second position with 11 percent of the bets, followed by betting on FIFA at 7 percent and on eCricket at 5 percent. The last position in the Top 5 of popular sports for betting in India is taken by tennis with 3 percent of the bet count.
Local Citizens will Still have Their Teer Betting
Meghalaya residents will still be permitted to participate in teer betting over arrow-shooting results. Teer is a traditional method of gambling, somewhat similar to a lottery draw, and held under the rules of the Meghalaya Regulation of the Game of Arrow Shooting and the Sale of Teer Tickets Act, 2018.
Teer includes bettors wagering on the number of arrows that reach the target which is placed about 50 meters away from a team of 20 archers positioned in a semicircle.
The archers shoot volleys of arrows at the target for ten minutes, and players place their bets choosing a number between 0 and 99 trying to guess the last two digits of the number of arrows that successfully pierce the target.
If, for example, the number of hits is 256, anyone who has bet on 56 wins an amount eight times bigger than their wager.
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