Religion matters. Aspirational India is still poor. India admires strong leaders. India values decency. Shreekant Sambrani highlights the reasons why the BJP pulled off improbable victories in the Hindi heartland.
'Somehow, Rahul Gandhi is not able to connect with the youth of the country.' 'While Modiji is 72, Rahul is only 52.' 'But the popularity of the prime minister among the young population is a lot more than Rahul's.'
The Congress, by and large, focused on local issues in this election and its campaign also was run by state leaders initially.
After Rahul's Bharat Jodo Yatra began criss-crossing the Hindi heartland, BJP leaders have revived their attacks on 'dynasty politics' and 'family rule' in the Congress, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Britannia Industries will take higher grammage cuts instead of increasing prices in a bid to tackle rising inflation, the firm said. The biscuit major took a 10 per cent price hike in financial year 2021-22 (FY22) and resorted to reducing pack sizes as an indirect way of increasing prices. In the previous financial year, the ratio of grammage reduction was 65 per cent, which will be higher in FY23.
For the most battle-hardened, specialised and successful counter-insurgency army in the world, this is an unfamiliar, first-time experience of dealing with the north east's deepest complexities, observes Shekhar Gupta.
The top guns of all the major political parties were on a campaign blitz across the state in the past few days, even as the ruling BJP has been striving to break the 38-year-old pattern of alternating governments and retain its southern citadel.
DD Freedish is the 'largest TV platform in India', going to 58 million homes, featuring 70-odd private channels. DD Freedish reaches about 278 million people, and is easily among the top five TV platforms in the world.
On poll eve, both the BJP and the Congress claimed they were headed towards a majority and would form the government.
In 2018, the BJP's rare successes in north-east India aside, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong for the party.
The BJP and Congress have already launched spirited campaigns for the elections.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday assured farmer leaders led by Rakesh Tikait and Yudhvir Singh of support to their agitation against the new agriculture laws.
The JMM-led three-party alliance stormed to power in Jharkhand, ousting the BJP. Here's the party-wise break-up of results.
'It doesn't help to transpose the Hindi heartland model on Bengal. Bengalis don't understand its dynamics. They won't comprehend the impact of Modi's dip in the Ganga because Bengal's political culture is different. Even in the Ramakrishna Mission Ashrams, Christ is worshipped on Christmas. It's difficult to polarise Bengal religiously'
In his maiden foray in the state election, Yadav won from the Karhal assembly seat by a margin of 67,504 votes.
One of the G-23 leaders also pointed out that "we are not political tourists" and said the party leadership has to be conscious of "rumour-mongers and naradmunis".
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.
He also alleged that for the Bharatiya Janata Party dispensation and its allies being a Hindu is no different from the team identity loyalty of the 'British football hooligan'.
Of the total 166 names declared so far by the Congress, 119 candidates will be making their electoral debut.
The 2014 Lok Sabha election saw the Bharatiya Janata Party led by Narendra Modi storm to power at the Centre with a "triple century", giving the National Democratic Alliance an unexpected 336 seats in the Lok Sabha .
Congress hopes to field upper caste candidates to eat into BJP voter base while SP-BSP focuses on consolidating Dalit-OBC votes in their favour.
Amit Shah, who orchestrated Bharatiya Janata Party's stellar performance in the Hindi heartland in the Lok Sabha elections, was on Wednesday named as the party's next president
Despite consumer inflation, joblessness, etc, ordinary voters still think Modi is the best to rule the country.< Going into the poll with a tried and tested prime ministerial candidate is a huge plus for the BJP --- and a huge handicap for the Opposition, points out Virendra Kapoor.
Regional films may have prevailed over the country, but regional leaders still have far mountains to climb to reach Delhi, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
The BJP may be ready and waiting to pounce on another key state of the Hindi heartland, but it is the Congress's holy trinity that issued them an invitation to the beheading, notes Sunil Sethi.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra appears to have shed the maximum sweat among top leaders for over the last 45 days in the seven-phase Uttar Pradesh assembly elections campaign.
The magnificent Jat community has taken his tears to its heart, observes Sudhir Bisht. In Tikait, they see their late leader's son, the son of their doughty farm leader Mahendra Singh Tikait, says Dr Sudhir Bisht.
After demolishing the Left bastion in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee is all set to make its electoral debut in the Hindi heartland of Uttar Pradesh in the coming assembly polls.
The Congress has kicked off the Uttar Pradesh assembly election campaign against state Chief Minister Mayawati with the party signaling in no uncertain terms that Rahul Gandhi would be at the centre stage of the fight for UP, a battle which is set to last for the next one year as Hindi heartland's biggest state becomes the battleground.
The Shiv Sena on Tuesday said the Bharatiya Janata Party faced defeat in the Jharkhand assembly polls because it took people for granted. It said Union Home Minister Amit Shah felt that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act would increase the Hindu voter percentage, but labourers and tribals in Jharkhand rejected the BJP.
Anil Ambani-led Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd (RBNL) today announced its foray into the regional television space with the launch of its Hindi entertainment channel - Big Magic. The channel, which will be targeted at the core Hindi heartland, will be launched on April 4.
The Congress party is poised to drop to single digit with an all time low figure of 9 seats out of 405 in the UP assembly elections to be held in 2012 according to a comprehensive survey commissioned by the party.
It may well be possible to defeat Modi. But nobody seems to know how, points out Vir Sanghvi.
'I don't think there will be any problem for Hindus to accept Adityanath as the leader, since they have already chosen Modi.'
'Victory and defeat are an integral part of life. Today's results will further our resolve to serve people and work even harder for the development of India,' Modi said.
Mitra was the editor of The Pioneer newspaper and was considered a respected voice on a variety of issues, ranging from politics to popular music, before poor health kept him out of the public eye for some time.
After sweeping Bihar, Nitish Kumar tells CNN-IBN in an interview that people's faith in good governance has been established in the state and that he has never eyed the Prime Minister's chair.
Few had imagined the BJP would be able to travel this far when it was founded on April 6, 1980.
'The message has gone loud and clear (among the people of Assam) that the BJP is only interested in polarising (the country) and they are basically interested in (capturing votes in) the Hindi heartland and they don't bother much about rest of India.'
Gearing up the machinery ahead of the general elections, the full Election Commission will visit Uttar Pradesh and Bihar this week to review the poll readiness in these two key states in the Hindi heartland which together accounts for 120 seats.
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