Ahead of the elections, a lot had been spoken of the large number of leaders defecting from the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party to the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena. In fact, a month before the polls, more than two dozen Congress-NCP leaders quit and joined the BJP in hopes of riding high on the Narendra Modi wave. While for some the shift has brought in good fortune, for others it has brought loss. Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com analyses how these defectors have fared.
'If they were really serious (about conferring the Bharat Ratna on Savarkar) what were they doing for the last five years?' 'Why do they have to take so long?' 'Gandhi himself never got the Bharat Ratna so it does not really matter.'
'How can the police say that she alone has committed the crime and no other person has done it?'
'Whether Lord Ram is a historical person is not the subject before the court.' 'The court was asking every time if can anyone show the exact birthplace of Lord Ram on the basis of documents.' 'I have shown that on the basis of documents. And these documents are not (based) on my beliefs.'
It is a waste of time to speak up in today's India, believes Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'Salman Khan should be booked under the National Security Act as he is destroying Indian culture.'
'While they claim to cherish Bapu's ideals, they cherish Godse as fervently.'
'It was immoral to cut the trees at Aarey, says Delhi law student Rishav Ranjan.
Why Aaditya Thackeray's decision to plunge into electoral politics is significant.
'What is critical today in India is confidence of depositors.' 'If you have these kinds of problems spreading like this, the confidence level of a lot of people in the system gets shaken.'
'What is at stake is not one mosque or temple, it is the question of the principle of secularism which is part of the basic structure of the Constitution as declared even by the Supreme Court of India.'
'He is posting that someone who took the metro (during a medical emergency) got saved.' 'Let him try doing the same. He cannot peddle nonsense just because he is a star.'
'Government must take into consideration the human cost of the NRC exercise'
'The Modi government is doing a good job but corrupt officers are siphoning off funds,' says journalist Pawan Kumar Jaiswal against whom an FIR has been filed for his video expose of school children being fed salt and rotis as their mid-day meal.
'After the NRC it is proved that whatever the BJP was saying about illegal Bangladeshi migrant was a lie and Indian Muslims have their documents to prove their citizenship.'
'Why should I as a common man not know where my parents are in Kashmir, how they are doing. It is my right,' student Mohammed Aleem Syed, who moved the Supreme Court to be allowed to visit Kashmir, tells Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
Why Shiromani Akali Dal MLA Manjinder S Sirsa is furious with the director and actor of Sacred Games 2.
If you're young and depressed, and don't know where your life is heading, Naseeruddin Shah seems to have the answer.
'We have a situation where the BJP, with less than 2 per cent vote share, has 10 MLAs.'
'Nehru's hegemonic politics has been responsible for many ills, which undoubtedly includes Kashmir'
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