'Modi's charisma and appeal is unparalleled.' 'Yogi has his own appeal and people connect.' 'He is seen as trustworthy, hardworking and honest.' 'People feel that these qualities are both common to Yogi and Modi.'
If Mr Modi has to win, he must convince the people of this country how his reforms improved the quality of their lives.
The expectation that Mr Modi would be a major reformer, capable of reinvigorating the Indian economy, were based on a complete misreading of both his actions and his performance as Gujarat chief minister, says Mihir S Sharma.
In an interview with PTI, Chidambaram also stressed that no Congress MLA elected in the upcoming assembly polls can be poached by the Bharatiya Janata Party in Goa this time, saying 'our house is well-guarded' and though the 'thief' is still out there, the people 'will teach him a lesson'.
Twitter can probably afford to wait it out. But would it have the moral courage to do so? asks Devangshu Datta.
"Such are his core supporters that they will vote for him even if cooking oil sells for Rs 5,000 per litre under his leadership.' 'They don't think about inflation but Modi when they go out to vote.'
'China was a relationship from which Mr Modi had expected the most it seems.' 'It showed in a string of summits, and somewhat breathless celebration of Xi Jinping.' 'It was hasty and simplistic,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
Special Judge D E Kothalikar, assigned to hear cases of the NIA, had, on February 14, rejected the bail plea of Hany Babu, and the detailed order was made available on Monday.
Shifting positions on religiosity and Covid may confuse the Hindutva citizenry, but you can rely on Bengal to turn a non-arguable issue into a raging controversy, notes Kanika Datta.
When he speaks of them, it is either in denial or to highlight successes that are only part of a larger story that is worrisome in its totality, observes T N Ninan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has five key aspects to his style of leading -- total command over bureaucracy, direct approval on every decision, flexible approach to issues, importance of communication and adept at repackaging schemes, says A K Bhattacharya.
Prime Minister Modi made a strategic blunder of Nehruvian proportions -- presuming no war can happen now, and the Chinese won't be a military threat and risk their economic interests, observes Shekhar Gupta.
"Mr Modi has utterly failed. It is clear by now that we (NDA) cannot deliver more than this (since 2014)," he said.
As Prime Minister Narendra D Modi finished four years in power and India gears up for the 2019 Lok Sabha election, we ask you, dear readers, what you think of Mr Modi and his government.
'While Piyush Goel, Dharmendra Pradhan, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and a clutch of former bureaucrats including R K Singh, Hardeep Singh Puri and K J Alphons are loyal BJP members, none of them fit the mould of party apparatchiks.' 'In fact, many of the latter kind have been shown the door or have been given reduced charges.' 'That goes to show the prime minister's comfort level in dealing with professionals and administrators and the trust he reposes in them,' says Shreekant Sambrani.
At some stage this fall in the quality of life will begin to hurt anybody's popularity, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'The economy is in a free fall.'
'And it's been declining for so long, so consistently, that the promise of growth and better days now looks a fantasy.' 'A mid-1970s kind of pessimism, even hopelessness, is growing among the young.' 'This isn't what Mr Modi promised them.' 'Their aspirations and needs are clear and present, and not being fulfilled,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
Will the Modi-Shah combine replace Vijay Rupani as Gujarat CM?
'If Modi wants to help the poor and get the credit for it as well, he must do what China does. He must openly adopt pro-capital policies.'
While seven of the suspended MPs belonged to the TMC, six were from the DMK, three from the Telangana Rashtra Samithi, two from the Communist Party of India-Marxist and one from the Communist Party of India.
The jobless armies of youthful India are getting angrier and desperate, warns Shekhar Gupta.
'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.
'And so, despite demonetisation, people in business feel safe with Mr Modi,' points out T N Ninan.
'If Mr Modi and Mr Shah have made a poisonous, polarising campaign their brahmastra for 2019, Mamata Banerjee is showing them its limitations,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'...It won't help the party run a peaceful and equitable India,' warns Vir Sanghvi.
'From his persistent fuelling of pan-Hindu nationalism to pandering to narrow Gujarati chauvinism, Rambo rides again, using fair means and foul -- and often foul -- to gain the battleground,' says Sunil Sethi.
'Mr Modi believes the world is like him. He thinks every one has a price or can be intimidated. He will never understand that those who fight for the truth have no price and cannot be intimidated,' Gandhi said in a tweet.
Industrialists have the same complaints as they did in the UPA's second stint.
The Sikhs love a good fight, and that's what the Modi government has given them.
Narendra Modi is no reformist, but here's how he could yet change the path India's economy.
Mr Modi should be conscious that it was his choice to slash the number of tax-payers from 60 million to 15 million, notes T N Ninan.
'What is unusual about the current period of slow growth is that it has come without an external driver -- high oil prices and/or successive monsoon failures -- as was the case with all previous periods of slowdown, going back 50 years, notes T N Ninan.
'In AAP, those who are in charge of a particular state provide information to Arvind Kejriwal. 'In the BJP, several organisations convey what is happening on the ground to the top leadership.' 'There are so many channels through which issues are being understood.'
The Modi government's record on governance is better than that of UPA-2, but not better than UPA-1, observes T N Ninan.
Desperate times need desperate actions, and the BJP's only option is to enforce legislation to build a Ram mandir, says Sunil Sethi.
'Indian democracy has become an oxymoron.I am hopeful that more people will boycott this politics of perversion and hatred and realise that this isn't sustainable for our great nation to prosper.
The BJP's message is that the past must be reinvented as creatively as imagination allows, states Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
If Modi wants to be a man of history, he must make hard choices that will pay off down the road, says T N Ninan.
'Jockeying for that position has possibly started at this time.'
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