'In this election, the only thing that is going to matter is which caste aligns with which coalition.'
Opposition parties have slammed the decision to change the long-standing practice, alleging it was being done with an eye on the assembly polls in five states.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's projection as prime ministerial candidate will lead to "jacking up" of communal temperature and there can be more riots such as Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, Congress leader and Union Minister Jairam Ramesh said on Thursday.
The interim Budget has attempted to tick all the boxes that could help the Modi government return to power, reports Archis Mohan.
Results show that the BJP has fared poorly in rural regions, underlining the need for the party to challenge issues like farm distress and unemployment.
'Like a madman, I was meeting everybody who ever knew me and getting numbers. I used to text them and ask for work.' 'I would randomly land on different sets and meet people.'
Alkazi, who was the longest serving director of the National School of Drama and mentored generations of actors, produced plays such as Girish Karnad's Tughlaq and Dharamvir Bharati's Andha Yug.
'At the end of the day, there will largely be a single candidate against the NDA's.' 'That itself will produce a different result altogether.'
As the results pour in from the five states which have gone to polls, scenes of celebrations can be seen across the nation.
The compulsions of the Hindutva vote bank over 25 years in Maharashtra have made the two parties the oldest ideological partners and it is unrealistic to believe the situation has changed, reports Sunil Gatade.
More than 20 national leaders will attend the meeting, TMC sources said. Most of them have already arrived in Kolkata.
The JMM-Cong-RJD alliance won 47 seats in 81-member assembly while the incumbent BJP managed to win only 25 seats. CM Das lost his seat to a party rebel despite giving the first full-term government to the state.
The Opposition grand alliance is proving to be a non-starter, with senior RJD leaders reluctant to be ordered about by an immature and entitled Tejashswi, observes Virendra Kapoor.
The Congress expects Rahul Gandhi to take over as its chief this year, Jairam Ramesh said on Monday.
Barring oil and gas, all BSE sectoral indices finished in the green.
'From 10 am on Tuesday to 3 am this morning, we must have made not less than a thousand phone calls.' 'We kept fighting till the end and we did not leave the room till we got 113 certificates.' 'Two-three losses would have changed the game and the BJP wanted to become the largest party which they did not become.'
There will be pressure on the fiscal situation, especially at a time when the monsoon can also disappoint. More populist expenditure is on cards if the mandate is a hung Parliament or a coalition government.
Rahul feels collective decisions taken with his mother and sister helped the party in the December assembly elections. Hence, he wants to follow the same strategy for the Lok Sabha election, too.
Modi garners nearly 37% vote nationally, courtesy West Bengal, Odisha, Karnataka and Telangana.
'The Congress's policy is it will take benefits from everybody, but when it gets an opportunity, it does not want to share it with others'
They said it was then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi who on February 1, 1986 got the permission for starting prayers at the disputed site and got the locks opened.
BJP's loss of power in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattigarh means that it will have to face a resurgent Congress in the three states where it had emerged victorious in 62 of 65 Lok Sabha seats.
'The BJP will not be able to create dictatorship of the kind it is perhaps dreaming of.' 'We have Bengal as the biggest example.'
The BJP's losses in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, where the UP CM had addressed nearly 75 rallies, has put a big question mark on his ability to deliver in high-octane contests, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.
From politics to fashion, the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance remains intact. Prasanna D Zore reports
Taking a jibe over the reported row in Bharatiya Janata Party over a move to field Narendra Modi from Varanasi and Rajnath Singh from Lucknow, Congress on Monday wondered as to why Opposition party leaders were looking for a safe seat if there was a Modi wave across the country.
From being called 'paon paon wale bhaiya' (foot soldier) by villagers to being addressed as 'Mama' (maternal uncle) by children, Chouhan's long innings at the top was interrupted when the BJP fell short of seven seats from the majority mark in the 2018 polls.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath attributed the impressive show by his party to the "alert voters" who he said rejected the 'mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) of opposition parties.
The party and its president, it seemed, were also unable to articulate their views effectively enough
As per the preliminary estimates, the BJP has significantly improved its national vote share from 31.34 per cent in 2014 to a new record high, while there appeared to be only a marginal change in case of the Congress from its 19.5 per cent score of the last elections.
'Perhaps there is a greater understanding of small town India amongst our stars today than earlier.'
The Congress chief also accused the prime minister again of running away from the debate.
'His humble words are no substitute for a clear vision for the future of the country. But humility has its own power, its own impact.' 'And it's probably more than that of a monogrammed suit,' says Shuma Raha.
With four contenders for the top post in case the BJP wrests power from AAP, party sources say naming of a CM face may trigger factional fights.
E-commerce websites are developing online content in Indian languages.
With the 2019 Lok Sabha polls less than eight months away, the party has resumed stoking the emotional issue through its second-and third-rung leaders.
'Indian secularism doesn't deserve a tombstone. It needs a new shrine,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
Nayar wrote that the central government should initiate steps to address the pending inter-state issues in the North East, especially the boundary dispute of Assam with Nagaland, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya.
On the face of it, the first round has gone to Edappadi K Palaniswami. Not only has he been named chief ministerial candidate, that too by his one-time bete noire Panneerselvam, he also gets one member more in the steering committee than OPS. He can now hope to wean away one or more members of the OPS team in the steering committee just as he had done with other leaders in the latter's camp, post-reunification. That was also OPS's concern, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
According to him, the temple issue did 'more harm than good' to the BJP as the matter was being used by the opposition 'to terrorise minorities and polarise votes'.
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