'In 2021, assembly elections are going to be held in Assam. The BJP, sitting in Delhi, is thinking everything is hunky-dory in Assam. But that is not the case.' 'People of Assam are no longer with the BJP.'
'The message they want to send to the country is that they can do anything by hook or crook'
If Amit Shah is likely to take to the home ministry like a duck to water, Nirmala Sitharaman's handling of finance will show whether she will justify the confidence which Modi has placed in her.
If Modi's truly a reformer and a believer in minimum government, he would bury the Vodafone ghosts now. He would also then go to Bihar, campaigning on his politically controversial reforms. Both will need him to dip deep into his accumulated political capital and risk it, suggests Shekhar Gupta.
'The BJP will be the ruling party.'
'Mamata is campaigning hard and not giving the BJP a walkover.'
'The north east does not want the solution that the BJP has given and it has become clear that it has not been fully thought through,' says Aakar Patel.
Rahul Gandhi is neither Congress president, office-bearer nor Congress leader in Parliament. This technical leeway provides adequate cover for Shiv Sena-Congress ties taking a nosedive, says Rasheed Kidwai.
On all key issues, Congress is MIA, sighs Shekhar Gupta.
'This bill is for the children of Partition who are still subject to inhuman barbarism because they profess a faith rooted in India.' 'If India fails them, we shall be no better than a Pakistan which brutalises its minorities and has turned into a factory of intolerant bigots,' says former BJP MP Tarun Vijay.
Some police encounters that stunned India.
'It's a natural alliance and this alliance has been has been formed without compromising the core ideology of the AIADMK.'
'Your confidence is shaken when the government does what it does these days, but then it is the same confidence that gives you the courage to stand up to the government's high-handedness.' 'There will always be people who will not fear jails or the physical and mental torture that visit citizens protesting against the government's draconian policies and laws.' 'There will always be Indians who will not be afraid to face the consequences of fighting for their Constitutional rights.'
There are many life lessons to be learnt from the way Sharad Pawar handled the Maharashtra political crisis.
Even Subramanian Swamy, who says he is an ardent supporter of the prime minister, has been taking proxy pot shots at him.' 'At the ground level too, there is resentment from workers and local leaders who have perhaps not got whatever they may have wanted,' notes T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
'Kejriwal has given not only Modi and Shah some food for thought, but also to jaded Opposition leaders who must now wonder whether taking on the BJP's majoritarianism by the horns, as they have been doing so far, is the appropriate strategy in such extraordinary times,' notes M K Bhadrakumar.
'The AMs are a different beast and reflect the political play within the government.' 'Prime Minister Modi does not need to assuage any interest group to take the final call on any decision that belongs rightfully to the Cabinet,' points out Subhomoy Bhattacharjee.
Declaring that he has no ambition of becoming prime minister, Pawar is holding Rahul Gandhi's hand, reassuring Mayawati and reaching out to Mamata Banerjee, reports Aditi Phadnis.
This whirlwind of activity only confirms that rushing around creating an impression of pompous busy-ness is not the same thing as solving problems, argues Mitali Saran.
'The NRC is aimed at rounding up and permanently jailing Indian Muslims who cannot produce the documents to satisfy a government which punishes those individuals who do not declare maximum number of Muslims foreigners.' 'It is for this reason that we see so many Indian Muslims protesting these laws and it is for this reason that so many non-Muslims cannot stand by and watch what is happening in their country,' says Aakar Patel.
'The government has given up its focus on economic growth because it it not something Modi has been able to fully understand.' 'This explains the extraordinary focus on divisive politics by the BJP even at a time when the world's most important man in visiting India,' notes Aakar Patel.
'2019 now looks like a real contest.' 'It will not be a repeat of 2014 if the BJP has to deal with erosion of its already low vote share of 31 per cent, and also faces a united Opposition,' says T N Ninan.
We are becoming more cruel and less civilised
Amit Shah requested Adityanath to tighten the reins of the HYV's activities, now that he was CM. But Adityanath is not prepared to let go so easily.
'The vitriolic campaign now in progress, the underlying threat of violence, and the elevation of Pragya Thakur as a star candidate are key markers in the BJP's obstacle-strewn march back to New Delhi,' says Sunil Sethi.
'If the BJP becomes the new Congress, then an Opposition within will naturally emerge -- from the right, not the left,' points out Mihir Sharma.
Nitish 'sent his emissary, Prashant Kishor, to me on five different occasions.' 'Kishor seemed to indicate that if I were to assure in writing my party's support to the JD-U, the latter would pull out of the BJP alliance and rejoin the Mahagathbandhan.' A revealing excerpt from Lalu Prasad Yadav's Gopalganj To Raisina: My Political Journey.
'We would try our best that the temple structure becomes visible in the next two years.'
Even as the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Congress were burning the candle at both ends to hammer out a deal over forming the government in Maharashtra, the Amit Shah-led BJP was quietly planning its moves.
'The TMC has become a private limited company.'
'Kejriwal took political steps and micro level care at every level not to allow the consolidation of Hindu votes behind the BJP,' observes Sheela Bhatt, the distinguished political commentator.
'Ayodhya will once again become Ram's city.'
Had it been an election of digital campaigns, the cost of the 2019 election would have been far less than what it actually is.
Can the Election Commission step up to the plate and exert its Constitutional powers with non-partisan conviction, asks Mitali Saran.
'The government's job is to enable people to live together, not tear them apart.' 'It is supposed to create spaces to work, live and survive -- this country is struggling and this government is saying you have no right of being.' 'It wants to declare human beings illegal. It is the most bizarre nonsense in the world.'
'The BJP is the most progressive force within Hinduism today.'
'Whether the people will benefit or not depends on what the central government does in Kashmir successfully.'
'No right thinking student of politics can name one state where the BJP gains in double digits.'
'None of his grandparents, and only one of his parents, was born in the US or spoke English as their mother tongue.' 'Of his three wives, one was born in Czechoslovakia and one in Slovenia.' 'Where would Trump have been if they, too, had 'rejected the ideology of globalism and embraced the doctrine of patriotism'?' asks Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'Besides electoral opportunism, a sustained vilification of AMU on one or the other pretext helps them sustain their 'everyday communalism', the new strategy of the BJP of the Narendra Damodardas Modi-Amit Anilchandra Shah era,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
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