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India’s farmers and the poor stand to gain irrespective of whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi wins a second term or his main opponent Rahul Gandhi wrests power in elections starting this week. The biggest losers will be loan defaulters-on-the-run. Poll promises of both Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and Gandhi’s Indian National Congress include spending billions of dollars to provide income support to the poor and farmers. A closer review of their manifestos shows many others who are poised to win and some who may end up losers. Here’s a quick snapshot: Winners Infrastructure builders: Both the parties pledged to boost spending to build highways and airports, and to modernize railways and cities. The BJP’s pledge to spend $1.44 trillion on infrastructure will benefit builders including Larsen and Toubro Ltd., India’s biggest engineering company, which saw a 12 percent drop in new orders in the December-quarter as economic growth during the period cooled to the lowest in ...

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra kicked off her party's campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh on Monday by offering prayers at the Lette Hanuman temple near Sangam. During her three-day visit, Priyanka will cover a distance of 100-km by boat in Ganga from Allahabad to Varanasi -- the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hopping from one temple to another. Her Ganga cruise is being seen by political observers as an effort to navigate her party out of a nearly three-decade long wilderness in the state. The Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh offered prayers on the banks of Sangam -- a confluence of rivers Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati. In a tweet, Priyanka recalled her memories associated with Swaraj Bhawan, where her grandmother and former prime minister Indira Gandhi was born. "Sitting in the courtyard of Swaraj Bhawan, I can see the room where my grandmother (In...