'In India a strong leader with a majority has never yet been defeated by a challenger.' 'He (or she, as with Indira Gandhi in 1977) must defeat himself,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'There's nothing in the 2019 campaign air, the chunavi hawa that tells you it's a wave election, for anyone,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
'The brutal violence of the UP government's first response to the anti-CAA protests suggests that the BJP will test drive the NPR/NRC in UP, where it has both a massive majority in the assembly and a chief minister whose instinct for Hindutva extremism and whose appetite for punitive policing allows a prime minister as darkly majoritarian as Modi to appear statesman-like,' notes Mukul Kesavan.
Shehla doesn't and has never shied away from talking the tough talk and walking the tough walk, says Gurmehar Kaur.
'NDA allies have realised that if they don't dump the BJP, then people will dump their party in 2019.' 'People's mood is against the BJP'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party president Amit Shah and chief ministers of National Democratic Alliance-ruled States are at the ceremony.
Adityanath will be the 21st UP chief minister and the fourth from the BJP.
Nath, 72, reached Bhopal late in night to be greeted with chants of 'Jai Jai Kamal Nath' by his supporters.
'It is possible that Akhilesh has set his sights on 2022.' 'By then, his present day enemies will be more or less a spent force while he himself will still have a clean image and, at 49, will be regarded as young.'
The apex court said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar Rafale deal.
UP now has 16 ministers, the maximum from any state, in an apparent bid to keep the Dalit and other backward class votebank content.
Ek Paheli Leela invests little effort in character development or setting, notes Paloma Sharma.
The apprehensions about Narendra Modi among Muslims will "go away" once he becomes the prime minister as there will be policy initiatives to remove such perception, his close aide Amit Shah said on Sunday.
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.
'He is anything but astute or charismatic. He believes the Congress can win elections without alliances in the Hindi heartland.'
'Modi has kept some loopholes in case they lose, saying it was not his election.' 'The fight will be Modi of 2014 vs Modi of 2019.' 'The BJP has realised that keeping the temple issue alive is more important than building the temple itself in terms of votes.'
'Bangladeshi Muslims want to increase their population in India.' 'They have made colonies in India.' 'Rohingyas are doing the same.' 'This has to stop.'
Could the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP become the rallying point of new energies that are getting unleashed all over urban India, in quest for a different kind of politics, to such an extent that he can rein in Narendra Modi? It all depends on how it pans out its politics in the coming weeks, says Neerja Chowdhury.
Bearing in mind how full India's pitcher is with ethnic and communal complexities, only the greatest circumspection can hold this country together in a willing union.
The exit poll results for the recently concluded assembly elections have projected that that BJP arty could emerge as the single-largest party in four of five states except Punjab.
If the Congress can simply go from 110 million to 130 million votes, it will yield a very different kind of NDA.
'Sachin Pilot has revived the Congress.' 'What goes in favour of Ashok Gehlot is experience.'
'Make no mistake, depriving water deliberately to a nation of 190 million people is a repugnant idea.' 'The world community won't forgive us.'
Sitaram Yechury speaks about the Left's future in politics and their chances in the Bihar polls.
Buoyed by recent poll victories, BJP on Saturday embarked on a fresh membership drive amid Prime Minister Narendra Modi's strong pitch for making it all inclusive so that all sections of the society feel their "flower" is represented in this "bouquet" of the party.
The Congress appears to be in two minds on the issue of alliance in Bihar despite top leaders of the party having met both Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad and Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan in past weeks.
Nitish Kumar has to eschew disastrous experiments with prohibition and reservations in the private sector. Unless he is dissuaded from pursuing these flawed measures, he will pave the way for Bihar to again become a part of the BIMARU group of sick states, says Amulya Ganguli.
'Thugs is smarter than a lot of 'nationalistic' movies,' notes Rohit Sathish Nair.
Issaq is a shoddily written film with a cringeworthy performance from its leading man Prateik Babbar, writes Raja Sen.
According the latest CNN-IBN-CSDS-Lokniti post poll survey, the National Democratic Alliance is projected to win 274 to 286 seats, and the Bharatiya Janata Party is projected to win 230 to 242 seats on its own, it best ever poll tally.
'Whatever the result on December 18, Rahul has succeeded.' 'He has taken the battle to the rival's territory, and forced him to take him more seriously than he has done so far, or would have wished to.' 'A party, dominating and powerful as the BJP today, is spending all its time attacking the leader of one with just 46 seats in the Lok Sabha, and in the woods in Gujarat for 22 years.' 'This isn't the script the BJP had written,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Nitish Kumar is on the brink of taking another wrong turn. It is hard to fathom why he would tie up with the Congress, which has little political capital left in Bihar. Aditi Phadnis reports
NDA's energy plan powered UP win, but it's not a winner yet. Centre has claimed to have saved money by targeted coverage but critics say the system is not yet foolproof.
'Modi's brilliance seems to be in combining Indira Gandhi's 'feel' for the Indian pulse and Narasimha Rao's cynicism.' 'By the time the Opposition leaders caught up with Modi over the 'surgical strikes', he had already moved on,' says M K Bhadrakumar.
Satyagraha attempts to speak about important issues but ends up over-simplifying them.
Many in the Bharatiya Janata Party feel that internal democracy in the party is being stifled
'Since we don't have toilets, we go in the fields. It is worse for the women. Men and women have demarcated different area for themselves. But it is most difficult for us during the monsoon.'
'I am hopeful of getting all six seats from Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur, either for the BJP or with our allies.' 'The same is true about Meghalaya.' 'We will have to work hard in Mizoram and in Tripura.' 'In Assam, we won seven seats. In 2019 election, we will add to this number.'
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi has called a meeting of chief ministers of 12 Congress-ruled states to figure out how to fill out the vacancies in the Rajya Sabha. Highly-placed sources have said that he wants to cajole Amethis's former feudal lord Sanjay Singh; by giving him an RS ticket, in view of his own weak position in Amethi. Renu Mittal reports.
Meaningful devolution of spending power to states could spread more confidence on the ground and stir precisely the sort of change Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised.
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