'I don't think there will be any problem for Hindus to accept Adityanath as the leader, since they have already chosen Modi.'
If it splits now, who takes what away and leaves what behind? asks Shekhar Gupta.
The Karnataka state executive meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party held on Friday in Bangalore spent a considerable amount of time discussing the election strategy, and more importantly, the return of Karnataka Janata Paksha chief B S Yeddyurappa into the party.
Bharatiya Janata Party national president Amit Shah on Thursday described the upcoming assembly elections as the second leg of the party's "Congress free India movement."
'We never looked at the Common Civil Code or the Ram Mandir from a narrow electoral outlook or treated them as electoral planks.'
Referring to party's win in Assam and rise in its vote share in Kerala and West Bengal, and 'unequivocal rejection' of the Congress by voters in the recent assembly polls in five states, it said the National Executive notes with 'pleasure' that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call for 'Congress-mukt Bharat' has today become a 'people's mission'.
'Even though we are very religious and God fearing, we do not subscribe to the kind of Hindutva they practise, a very hierarchical, Brahmanical, Hindutva.'
If there is unity in the Opposition, it is only about regional parties other than the DMK not wanting Rahul Gandhi or any other Congress leader for prime minister, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
A new Congress leader may make an electoral impact by his very presence. Congress voters who had moved away from the party, after being influenced by the BJP's 'family rule' campaign, can now return with a certain moral satisfaction, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
KCR, as Rao is popularly known, was administered the oath of office and secrecy by Governor E S L Narasimhan at a simple ceremony on the lawns of Raj Bhavan.
Modi kept away from the media during his visit to the party headquarters in New Delhi. Though he was welcomed with bursting of crackers, beating of drums and slogan shouting, Modi chose to wave from inside his bullet-proof SUV. He did not speak to the media and left after attending the parliamentary board meeting which analysed the BJP's performance in the four states and decided the future course of action.
Congress workers must feel what their BJP counterparts did in 2009, but that could change.
To snatch a state government out of Congress hands is therefore a high-stakes game with national political implications, for it denies the party the essential fuel to run effective election campaigns, notes T N Ninan.
Modi, Shah and Nadda have created a strategy to boost the BJP and the government's image.
'Every Congressperson is disillusioned in different degrees.'
'People will realise sooner or later that there are no jobs, inflation is unchecked and loads of corruption charges are coming from various states which the government is totally brazen about.'
It seems the Congress just does not have the energy and vitality to break through even in the states where it has a ground presence and the wind of anti-incumbency on its back, says Aakar Patel.
The Sena said Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Patidar leader Hardik Patel had been ridiculed as "monkeys" but "these 'monkeys' have slapped the 'lion'.
"Rahul Gandhi is de facto Congress chief but he should become de jure" and make the party battle ready without waiting for anti-incumbency to build up against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, senior party leader Jairam Ramesh said.
Sonia, Rahul and former prime minister Manmohan Singh gave fiery speeches attacking the Modi-led government.
The party managed only 52 seats on its own and many of its top leadership, including Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and Jyotiraditya Scindia were defeated in the polls.
Mr Modi and Mr Shah will need him if they want to win UP again in 2022 and India in 2024. This signals a Yogi Adityanath-sized change in BJP politics, even under Mr Modi, Shekhar Gupta.
The Hindutva social media continues to present the DMK especially as anti-god, anti-Hindu and anti-Brahmin. The strategy did not work in the past, it has not worked in the present, and would not work in the future, as a massive vote-getter, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Is anyone in the BJP listening -- to what Nitin Gadkari had to say, but possibly left unsaid? asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The Congress may have made mistakes, but their ideology is not wrong. India will not function if you do not believe in unity in diversity,' declares filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt. Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com reports from Lucknow.
He said he spoke whatever he felt from within and added 'neither I dream it, nor there is any liaisoning, nor any PR'.
Priyanka Gandhi will strike a deal with Mayawati and not Akhilesh, says Nazarwala.
'Be it Shivraj Singh Chouhan or Raman Singh or Vasundhara Raje --- all of them would have won as it is. These are all leaders who would have won on their own. But the victory margins have been enriched by Modiji's campaign.'
'The BJP will be the ruling party.'
The Congress party just lost power in Arunachal Pradesh once again!
Gandhi also thanked all the Congress workers "who fought for the idea of India and defended it"
Modi said it was time to rid 'Devbhoomi', or the land of the gods as Himachal Pradesh is known, of monsters.
Amit Shah's meticulous planning and Modi's charisma will turn the tide in the BJP's favour, says Nazarwala.
Many important RSS people believe the 2014 result was the consequence of Hindutva and not just Modi's outstanding oratory, says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Gandhi said India has been devastated by demonetisation and the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
The humility with which the BJP deals with these 10 lessons will determine the outcome of 2019, says Shekhar Gupta.
Modi-Shah can complain about the Congress playing caste politics but the fact is that in Gujarat it is threatening to return to the old normal. Caste again threatens to divide what Hindutva has kept united for 25 years, says Shekhar Gupta.
'It is perhaps a sense of intellectual inadequacy, of an ingrained inferiority complex born of the years when the BJP languished in the margins of Indian politics and society that, when faced with the soaring ideas about Indian pluralism, the Hindutva camp turns its face so resolutely against Nehru,' says Amulya Ganguli.
'Why has the phrase gone missing from Modi's vocabulary?' asks Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
Writing on January 18, 2017, Nazarwala had this to say: 'The Modi wave may help the BJP score a triple century; its vanvaas in UP shall end before Holi.'
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