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Bihar: Grand Alliance sweeps, opposition targets Modi

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Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s Grand Alliance scored a stunning win on Sunday in the assembly elections, dealing a major blow to the BJP and sparking opposition attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi who led his party’s challenge in the bitterly contested battle.

A sombre Modi telephoned Janata Dal-United (JD-U) leader Nitish Kumar and congratulated him as the Grand Alliance – which also includes the RJD of Lalu Prasad and the Congress – was poised to win 161 of the 243 seats, leaving the BJP-led four-party combine with just 74 seats. Smaller parties including the BSP and the CPI-ML were set to win eight seats.

The Grand Alliance was just one short of a two-third majority to give Nitish Kumar his third straight victory in Bihar.

The JD-U, the RJD and the Congress grabbed over 41 percent of all the votes in the five-phased ections that began on October 12 and concluded on November 5. The BJP alliance got 38 percent.

The Shiv Sena, the BJP’s junior ally in Maharashtra, joined Chief Ministers Arvind Kejriwal of Delhi and Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal as well as former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah in hailing the Grand Alliance win and taking a dig at Modi.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was confident of ousting Nitish Kumar, admitted its calculations had gone wrong in one of the toughest state elections in recent times.

“This is not an outcome we expected,” BJP general secretary Ram Madhav said. “The Grand Alliance has done much better than what we thought. This defeat calls for serious thinking. We need time to analyse.”

Union minister Prakash Javadekar sought to blame the BJP’s allies. “The BJP lost only because of alliance arithmetic.” BJP vice president Prabhat Jha added: “We failed to understand people’s mind. We will have to change our election strategy.”

Compared to the number of assembly segments it led in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, the BJP lost every second seat.

JD-U’s Pavan Verma said: “It is a defeat for Modi and (BJP president) Amit Shah.”

MIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi, whose party contested from six constituencies and lost everywhere, also said: “It is a personal defeat for Modi as never before has a prime minister campaigned so much in a (state) election.”

In contrast to claims that it would form the government in Bihar, the BJP ended up being the third largest party in the Bihar house. And though both the JD-U and RJD contested 101 seats each, it was the RJD that emerged the single largest party with 77 seats followed by JD-U’s 66.

But Lalu Prasad has declared that Nitish Kumar would be the chief minister irrespective of whether his party wins more or less seats than the JD-U.

The Congress was set to grab 15 seats, followed by BJP allies Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) with five, the Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) three and the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) also with three seats.

As the vote count began at 8 a.m. across Bihar on Sunday, initially it appeared that the BJP and its allies were forging ahead. But the picture changed soon as the Grand Alliance clawed back strongly.

Thousands of jubilant JD-U, RJD and Congress activists celebrated in Patna. Party leaders and workers consumed and distributed sweets, burst firecrackers, smeared ‘holi’ colour on one another and danced to drums.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the BJP’s defeat was a “victory of tolerance, defeat of intolerance”. Delhi Chief Minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal congratulated Nitish Kumar on “this historic victory”. Both Banerjee and Kejriwal came out in support of Nitish Kumar during the election.

The Shiv Sena said the BJP must accept that the Bihar defeat was Modi’s doing. It hailed Nitish Kumar as “a political hero” and said the outcome “will be a turning point in the country’s political future”.

Omar Abdullah too said in a tweet to Nitish Kumar: “Your victory will prove critical for the nation in the days ahead.”

BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha, who had been taking potshots at the BJP leaders for sidelining him, also fired a salvo.

The veteran Bollywood actor tweeted: “It is a victory of democracy and the people of Bihar. I salute them… The writing was always on the wall… Salute once again to Biharis.”

It is the BJP’s second straight defeat in state elections since the Aam Aadmi Party routed it in Delhi in February.

BJP leaders were hopeful of turning the tide in Bihar, to prove that the Delhi defeat was a fluke. It didn’t happen that way.

Asked how the Grand Alliance beat back the aggressive campaigning by Modi and Amit Shah’s micro-management of the election, JD-U leader Nawal Sharma told IANS: “Nitish’s glittering face and Lalu’s strong base got us these numbers. All the polarising (bids) of BJP — Dadri, Pakistan, cow, beef — have hit them hard.”

Entertainment

Meghalaya Reserves Legalized Gambling and Sports Betting for Tourists

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PureWin Online Betting

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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