'Akhilesh's plan is simple.' 'He wants to lead the party on the strength of the infrastructural development his government has done, capitalise on the massive sympathy wave of young people in the state who dream of doing what he has managed to do -- defy a feudal, greying orthodoxy that occupies and sits on posts and positions never to leave.'
The HRD minister claimed that Gandhi family had failed to deliver on their development promises to Amethi, which had to wait for all these years to get a rail line.
'Yogi Adityanath will prove to be the most popular and effective chief minister, overseeing a regime of peace and justice, harsh on wrongdoers and rabble rousers, encouraging those who work for India,' says Tarun Vijay.
The Aam Aadmi Party has to return to the drawing board and learn from this experience. The party is here to stay and make its mark in Indian politics, says AAP members in the US. Ritu Jha/Rediff.com reports from California.
The railways is expecting a revenue of Rs 1,84,820 crore during the current financial year (FY17).
Several SP leaders fear Muslim voters may shift loyalty, which will benefit rivals like the BJP.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited his constituency Varanasi on Friday, for the first time since taking charge. During his two-day visit, the PM is also adopted Jayapur village.
'Whenever Yogiji said something which was against the party line, we distanced ourselves from that.' 'He will not speak his personal opinion now.'
In 1998, the Congress asked her mother to campaign. 'We had a family discussion. We explained to our mother that you will be used, you will be discarded once you are done with the campaign.' 'A few days later I got a call from my mother. She said, "I have decided to campaign".' 'We were stunned. Why was she doing this?' Payal Mohanka listens in.
While refuting media reports about her plans to contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha election, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Thursday went all out to woo the state's Muslims, by training her guns at the entire brigade along with its prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi.
Tension mounted in Barwala town of Hisar district in Haryana ahead of on Monday's deadline set by the Punjab and Haryana high court to ensure appearance of self-styled godman Rampal in a contempt case, prompting authorities to impose prohibitory orders at several vulnerable places.
'Will Modi succeed with the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan? He will not, because cultural change does not come purely from legislation and never overnight. It comes internally and this is something Gandhi understood,' says Aakar Patel.
Everyone showered praise on UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav for having provided unprecedented support to Nepal
More than 25 years after the Babri Masjid was destroyed, another generation proclaims its commitment to building a Ram temple.
Who would be footing bill for what was supposedly a "family affair" could be anybody's guess.
This is dil ka alliance, mil ke jeetenge (It is an alliance of heart, we will win together)... says Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi while addressing a joint press conference with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
At its heart, the furore over 'love jihad' reveals an anxiety over the increase in inter-religious marriages and women's freedom, says Charu Gupta, associate professor of history at Delhi University, whose areas of research include the colonial history of Uttar Pradesh and issues of gender and sexuality.
Ruby Singhal is the only woman autorickshaw driver in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. Her husband also drives an auto. Last month, both their autos were set on fire by a drunken man, who is not known to them. A lesser soul would have given up but Ruby is determined to buy a new rickshaw. How she does not know, but she is sure she will.
The BJP's manifesto for UP elections promised many things. But, given the state's precarious financial position, fulfilling these promises is likely to prove tricky, says Ishan Bakshi.
Behind the BJP's astounding electoral success is a small army of dedicated lieutenants marshalled by Amit Shah.
While Raju and Brijesh Saroj have found help from the Uttar Pradesh government as well as the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Zahid Qureshi is struggling to make ends meet.
The alleged forced reconversion of about 100 people to Hinduism in Agra by a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh affiliate set off a chorus of criticism against the government today by the opposition inside and outside Parliament with its leaders calling it illegal and demanding 'strict' action.
Foreigners from various corners of the globe to move out of Kathmandu and others parts of Nepal.
Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Amar Singh on Tuesday shared the dais with Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav for the first time in four years after bitter parting of ways with the party, even as he insisted that political connotation should not be attached to this gesture.
BJP prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi left no stone unturned to make frontal attacks on Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, repeatedly blaming them for Amethi's neglect. Sharat Pradhan reports
Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani has moved 2 ranks ahead this year on the most powerful list.
Why did the district magistrate take over an hour to order retaliatory firing on the murderous SBVS mob?
'Where they lose, you never ask why they failed there, like in Bihar and Punjab.' 'You are stuck on the UP victory, thinking they have the mandate to rule for all times to come.' 'The BJP has 282 MPs, but can I honestly say that the BJP is the party for everyone?'
'The BJP has latched on to the idea of nationalism, but the nationalism they advocate is not nationalism as we have understood it since the time of the freedom movement.' 'This is not secular nationalism, it is Hindu nationalism.' 'It is a form of nationalism that is exclusionary and it tends to conflate national interest with the government.' 'So, if you disagree with the government, for example, on surgical strikes or demonetisation, you are anti-national or holder of black money.'
'AAP's real value must be measured not by the number of Lok Sabha seats it wins in the election -- which may not exceed 10 or 15 -- and not even by the number of votes it takes from the BJP, but by its ability to deflate Modi's superhuman '56-inch chest' image and the charisma so assiduously manufactured around him by the corporate-controlled media.'
'If the BJP wants to build a minimally inclusive and secure society, in which vulnerable groups and religious minorities don't feel persecuted, then the Sangh Parivar, the party and its government must change their ways. Or else, they risk dividing India further -- violently and irreparably -- for narrow political ends,' argues Praful Bidwai.
'There is nothing like the Sangh agenda or the BJP agenda... we believe only in the Nation's Agenda,' says newly appointed BJP Vice-President Vinay Sahasrabuddhe.
'The BJP used to be a party of decent, Hindu, middle-class people. Today, it is a party of goons. At the ground level, goons beat you up and at the senior level, the intellectuals justify the beating up.' 'On May 13, one boy sent me an SMS at 2.35 am: "Mayank sir, only five seats, what will happen?" There will be a lot of these idealist kids who want that quick transformation that may not happen. We will have to mentor them. We will have to explain to them that nations cannot be changed like that.' Aam Aadmi Party leader Mayank Gandhi, on the lessons the party has learnt from Election 2014.
'Narendra Modi is single-handedly changing the formula to win elections. With money, human resources, mobile technology, the Internet, advance planning and tremendous confidence, he has spread his image more in UP villages than in urban areas.' Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt reports from Lucknow on how Team Modi is changing the rules of the election game.
'There was an overt campaign and there was a covert campaign. The overt campaign may be development, government, and all this nonsense. But the covert campaign, which Mr Amit Shah was doing, was far more important with the help of RSS cadres. This has been an RSS election. From day one I have been saying, this is not Congress versus the BJP, this is Congress versus the RSS,' says Jairam Ramesh, one of the key strategists of the Congress party.
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