Hafta 474: Cross-voting in Rajya Sabha polls, on India being a ‘dictatorship’

NL Hafta

This week, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, and Jayashree Arunachalam are joined by The News Minute’s executive editor Sudipto Mondal.

On the cross-voting during Rajya Sabha polls in Karnataka, Sudipto points to the similarity in ideological stance of the state’s three major political parties. “There is no difference between the average BJP guy, the average JDS guy and the average Congress guy,” he says. Raman adds that in Himachal Pradesh’s RS polls, some members of the Congress knew beforehand that MLAs of their party would vote for the BJP.

DiscussingDilip Mandal’s article responding to Dhruv Rathee’s video on India taking a turn towards dictatorship, Abhinandan says it’s a weak critique since debunking an idea with “whataboutery” is a nihilistic argument. Sudipto believes that nihilism is an important form of critique for the oppressed classes who have been kept out of power systems for centuries.

This and a lot more. Tune in!

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Timecodes

00:06:13 - Headlines

00:31:44 - Rajya Sabha polls

00:39:41 - Discussing Dilip Mandal’s article

01:06:06 - Letters

01:32:07 - Recommendations

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Produced and recorded by Aryan Mahtta, edited by Hassan Bilal.

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