'...the electoral playing field is tilted significantly in its favour.'
'There is no scope for any doubt. This was a scheme designed to enrich the ruling party.'
'Revanth Reddy mounted a spirited campaign in Telangana which turned around the fortunes of the Congress in six months.'
Will he, will he not? That is the question on every Congress leader's mind as Rahul Gandhi has still not indicated whether he is ready to take on the mantle of party president.
Some analysts also pointed out that "outsourcing" political management to regional satraps such as Bhupinder Singh Hooda in Haryana may have proven counterproductive and micromanagement by the Gandhi family was needed.
Senior state leaders of the two parties pointed to propping up of the "new set of leaders not having much political stature" and lack of communication for the failure to reconcile differences.
Priyanka Gandhi addressed 209 rallies and roadshows, the maximum by any top leader during the UP election campaign, followed closely by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who spoke at 203 poll events.
'If the Opposition does make a dent, it could encourage the efforts of regional parties to come together for the larger battle in 2024 and mark the beginning of a new anti-BJP politics.'
'It will impact the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.'
'The larger intention is to create a political State where there is no opposition.'
'What worked for the BJP were three things: Hindu nationalism, religion and a silent but strong anti-Muslim sentiment.'
'India's defining characteristic has been its ability to manage and sustain democratic governance through an accommodation of ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity.'
The issue combined with its alliance with anti-Congress parties in 1989 won the BJP 85 seats in Lok Sabha elections against mere two in 1984.
Analysts said a likely spell of governor's rule in the state will allow the central government to take tough measures against terrorism, which may provide the ruling BJP a plank in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
It is likely that small parties would be given very few seats to contest, but these parties believe that they would be able to swing the result in favour of bigger alliance partners by transferring their vote bank.
Discontentment of allies may not look serious now, but the BJP needs to develop a better mechanism to deal with the allies ahead of the next Lok Sabha polls in 2019.
'The autonomy of essential institutions is clearly under question as the Modi government seeks to influence them politically.' 'The credibility of institutions such as the EC, the CBI, the CVC, the UPSC, the RBI, media, and universities, has been compromised,' notes Zoya Hasan, the distinguished political thinker.
"Slogans are a subset of freedom of expression. You express your politics through it. I can chant any slogan, you can differ or agree. But you can't slap sedition charges," Aparajitha Raja, the 25-year-old president of the JNU unit of AISF and daughter of CPI leader D Raja, tells Shivam Saini.
'The ruling provides a Constitutional template, it draws boundaries, and there is this expectation that henceforth political parties will not make crude appeals to religion for electoral gains.'
'The BJP has latched on to the idea of nationalism, but the nationalism they advocate is not nationalism as we have understood it since the time of the freedom movement.' 'This is not secular nationalism, it is Hindu nationalism.' 'It is a form of nationalism that is exclusionary and it tends to conflate national interest with the government.' 'So, if you disagree with the government, for example, on surgical strikes or demonetisation, you are anti-national or holder of black money.'
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