Not having launched a political party, Rajni now has his fans spread across various political parties in the state. They vote for different political parties and candidates, depending on issues and factors such as ideology, caste and community, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The Modi wave is superimposed by an anti-Congress wave. While there is anger against the Congress, there is also a pro-Modi sentiment. Together, it will lead to a Modi victory.' Psephologist Dr Rajeeva Karandikar explains to Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com the science behind his prediction that the Narendra Modi-led NDA will win Election 2014.
For the third front to become a reality, it needs a party that has a pan-India presence and wins more Lok Sabha seats than all other parties in the front, say experts.
'Otherwise, how is the government going to make more revenue?' 'The most important thing the GST does is to transfer money from the household consumers who are the most productive users of capital to the most unproductive users of capital, namely the government.'
The controversial report of the JPC, which gave a clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the 2G spectrum scam saying he was "misled" by the then Telecom Minister A Raja, was on Monday tabled in Lok Sabha amid pandemonium.
'Can the Aam Aadmi Party challenge the BJP? Someday perhaps. But to set him up as a national alternative just now smacks of the very sin that Arvind Kejriwal admits brought him down in 2014 -- arrogance.'
For all the blame-game over the flood preparedness in Chennai and elsewhere in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, this is not the first of its kind. Nor would it be the last, given the nature of the north-east monsoon, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Here's everything you need to know about the Goods and Services Tax Bill.
Opposition parties on Monday staged a walkout in the Rajya Sabha after their demand for a resolution on Gaza was not accepted.
Senior Congress leader and Pro-tem Speaker Kamal Nath has defended Sonia and Rahul Gandhi's decision not to lead the opposition in Lok Sabha. Speaking in an exclusive interview with CNN-IBN, Nath also said the Congress will provide an effective opposition.
'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.'
'I told him when I started my political career seven decades ago he was not even born. His political activities, the protests he organises and the way he fights the biggest corporate of India, the Ambanis, give hope to all people who are progressive. My desire is that such a party must grow, and I wished him all success for its growth.' V S Achuthanandan, the senior-most Communist in India, tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier why he turned down Arvind Kejriwal's invitation to join the Aam Aadmi Party.
'We have about Rs 4 lakh crore debt on a state budget of about Rs 1.5 lakh crore.' 'We are in a debt two-and-a-half times our annual budget,' says the banker who would have been Tamil Nadu's finance minister had the DMK won.
Despite the recent electoral reverses, Rahul is getting ready to walk the fire once more. The question is whether he will get burned or burnished in the process, says Saroj Nagi.