This week on Grand Tamasha, Milan Vaishnav (Director of the South Asia programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) chats with Sadanand Dhume of the American Enterprise Institute and Tanvi Madan of the Brookings Institution to discuss the latest news from the campaign trail.
The three discuss the BJP’s controversial nomination of Sadhvi Pragya and the criticism of the Election Commission’s management of the polls. They also discuss whether one can read anything into the modest voter turnout in the first two phases of the election.
Milan talks with veteran journalist Barkha Dutt (of the Washington Post and Tiranga TV) about her reporting on the 2019 election.
They discuss the fake news epidemic in India, the electoral salience of national security, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic messaging. Milan and Barkha also debate whether the Congress President Rahul Gandhi can successfully connect with voters.