Prominent celebrity losers include national award-winning actor Suresh Gopi, comedian Dharmajan Bolgatty, actress Priyanka Anoop, actor-anchor Krishnakumar and television serial actor Vivek Gopan.
Modi will address a rally to boost BJP candidate Smriti Irani's chances.
Nitish Kumar has to make an existential choice: Between governance and politics, argues Aditi Phadnis.
'For Modi, it's not just winning, but winning with style.'
'The BJP will be the single largest party in the next Lok Sabha, the only one party with a three digit tally.'
'If there is any possibility, then the BJP has to accept our conditions. There should be caste census in the country, the report of the social justice committee should be implemented, the CM should be from backward caste and also the poor must be provided a uniform, mandatory and free education as well as free medical treatment.'
Modi knows how to turn Gujarati pride into an emotive issue at election time and a Gujarati President would have its own electoral resonance and significance, note Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari.
New ministry will bring much-needed transparency in the functioning of the cooperatives, which so far have been riddled with allegations of political interference and mismanagement.
'There is no law and order in Bihar.' 'Criminals do as per their will.'
'This obsession with 'one' is not good for a country like India.'
Will DMK send former PM to the Rajya Sabha next month?
Though the run-up to the poll saw a high pitched campaign by the parties, the turnout of the voters on December 1 was an unimpressive 46.55 per cent (34.50 lakh) out of the total 74.67 lakh voters.
The RSS wants three nominees inducted: Tejaswi Surya, the young BJP MP from Bengaluru South, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, a Rajya Sabha member, and former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.
Amit Shah believes Bandi Sanjay Kumar is 'single-handedly' capable of unseating the TRS government in the December 2023 assembly election and there is no need for the BJP's central leaders to jump into the Telangana scene.
Three months after the Modi government withdrew SPG cover to Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi, they are all set to lose another special status provided to them.
'Between now and 2021, Bengal's politics could change irrevocably,' predicts Kanchan Gupta, Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation.
It appears that the party has some kind of political death wish, observe Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari.
The MP from East Burdwan, who defected to the BJP last December, has been put on 'probation' by the TMC, which he wants to rejoin.
It is going to be a rough and brutal 2020 for India as its government pushes on with its ideological agenda, and the citizens do whatever they can to protect themselves, notes Aakar Patel.
Aditi Phadnis picks five key seats in the three states where assembly elections are being held today.
Modi will utilise the Presidential poll to show that he is the only leader who matters in India, argue Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari. So the question being asked in political circles is: 'Who will be the next Kovind?'
An adverse outcome against the BJP in UP can well be taken into its stride by the ruling combine at the Centre, argues Virendra Kapoor.
'The burden of the BJP's song is not development and delivery.' 'It is communalism,' argues Aakar Patel.
'The BJP's problem is what rabbit can it pull out of the conjurer's hat?'
'Raut saheb has mentally wired himself to spend some time in ED custody.' 'He knows the risk is huge, but rewards will be bigger if he comes out unscathed.'
'If you want to really grow, it has to be geometric progression like it happened at the Centre or Haryana or Tripura, where you made a quantum jump.' 'This is possible in Kerala provided we present a better alternative with a great leadership, but the current leadership is busy fixing each other.'
'A unified Hindu votebank -- the creation of the largest and most reliable votebank in Indian politics, ever,' says Mihir S Sharma.
RLSP leaders feel insulted after getting no response from the BJP on their demand for a 'respectful seat sharing formula' for the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
'By the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, they moved back to the BJP almost totally and later their backing helped us win the local body elections.'
Now, the chief minister is under pressure to make good his promise after the December 4 incident in Nagaland's Mon, where 14 people were killedAFSPA has eclipsed all other achievements of the Biren Singh government.
Just six years after his father's Rath Yatra, the BJP came to power in New Delhi in 1996, points out Jayant Advani.
'You will see more laws that treat Hindus and non-Hindus, especially Muslims, quite unequally.' 'Once you see this kind of erosion of secularism, it will be very hard to get it back.'
The BJP continuing to look at the Dravidian polity through the religious prism has not worked in Tamil Nadu whereas it has yielded political and electoral results across much of the rest of the country, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Behind this never-say-die attitude of the BJP is probably the calculation of the Roman emperors that if bread is scarce, give the people circus, observes Amulya Ganguli.
Bundelkhand is thought to be an area where Mayawati has some influence. Both Amit Shah and Shivraj Chouhan believe every weapon in the arsenal must be used to ensure victory.
'Shatrughan Sinha's name is in the Congress's probable candidates list.'
'Since 2017, the chief minister and the RSS seem to have come closer.' 'This relationship's warmth is more from the RSS's side.'
The poll results will depend much on whether the caste and community coalition worked out by Akhilesh can withstand the onslaught of the Hindutva forces who have increased their efforts to polarise the electorate on communal lines.
The BJP's vote share in Punjab has been declining -- 8.21 per cent in 2007 to 7.13 per cent in 2012, and finally to 5.4 per cent in 2017, when it won just three of 23 seats the party contested. So doing an election deal with Amarinder and a political formation he might float in the future is not inconceivable.
After the people pay their homage for an hour on Friday morning, the late prime minister's body will be taken to the BJP headquarters where it will lie in state before the funeral.
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