'I don't buy the theory that if the BJP gets less than 220 seats or 200 seats, there will be a change in leadership.'
'Whatever the BJP tries to do, they will not be able to make a big mark in Kerala.'
'Jay Shah's tenure as BCCI secretary ended in May.' 'Sourav Ganguly's tenure as BCCI president ended on July 26.' 'Why have they not quit?'
'The Scindias betrayed Jhansi ki Rani and now the Congress party.' 'So this is nothing new as he is repeating the history of his family.'
This whirlwind of activity only confirms that rushing around creating an impression of pompous busy-ness is not the same thing as solving problems, argues Mitali Saran.
The politics of hate does not pay. The people are too sensible to fall for such a ruse, says Amulya Ganguli.
'If Kerala votes back the LDF, if Tamil Nadu brings the DMK and if Bengal votes for the Trinamool, we will project a formidable opposition to the BJP.'
'No right thinking student of politics can name one state where the BJP gains in double digits.'
'Doklam was almost like a trailer to what is happening in Ladakh today.' 'Modi failed to take note and failed to act,' observes Harishchandra Dighe.
'The Congress may not be able to dump the family entirely, but it could move to a new operating model in which the family takes a 'chairmanship' role while day-to-day affairs are handled by a new CEO.'
'The north east does not want the solution that the BJP has given and it has become clear that it has not been fully thought through,' says Aakar Patel.
Rahul Gandhi is neither Congress president, office-bearer nor Congress leader in Parliament. This technical leeway provides adequate cover for Shiv Sena-Congress ties taking a nosedive, says Rasheed Kidwai.
'None of his grandparents, and only one of his parents, was born in the US or spoke English as their mother tongue.' 'Of his three wives, one was born in Czechoslovakia and one in Slovenia.' 'Where would Trump have been if they, too, had 'rejected the ideology of globalism and embraced the doctrine of patriotism'?' asks Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'This bill is for the children of Partition who are still subject to inhuman barbarism because they profess a faith rooted in India.' 'If India fails them, we shall be no better than a Pakistan which brutalises its minorities and has turned into a factory of intolerant bigots,' says former BJP MP Tarun Vijay.
'...to give him a signal that you cannot ignore Maharashtra, you are too close to the Centre.' 'I can see some kind of rivalry also in this, but it is better that the NIA goes deep into it.'
Some police encounters that stunned India.
'The standing committee on defence was flagging what the services had said.' 'As a soldier, General Khanduri might have felt that it was his duty to point this out in the greater good of India,' points out Aditi Phadnis.
'Every man in the hot seat needs trusted cops to grind their axe with political opponents.' 'And that's what explains Waze's importance; him investigating the fake TRP scandal, his arrest of TV journalist Arnab Goswami, and heading the investigation into the Antilia bomb scare case.'
There are many life lessons to be learnt from the way Sharad Pawar handled the Maharashtra political crisis.
'You don't win elections on the basis of borrowed players.' 'There is a great crisis of leadership for the BJP in Bengal'
'Modi wants to go down in history not necessarily as India's first overtly Hindu RSS pracharak prime minister, but as a world statesman who built the idea of India as a great nation.'
'The vitriolic campaign now in progress, the underlying threat of violence, and the elevation of Pragya Thakur as a star candidate are key markers in the BJP's obstacle-strewn march back to New Delhi,' says Sunil Sethi.
'If the BJP becomes the new Congress, then an Opposition within will naturally emerge -- from the right, not the left,' points out Mihir Sharma.
'Vajpayee was predictable in his ways.' 'Modi is a schemer, possessed of a shrewdness that can be rewarding in the chaotic world of politics.' 'His political journey gives reason to believe that 2019 will be another milestone in his private project,' notes Vikram Johri.
'When he has been retired against his will, Advani appears to have found the merits of tolerance.' 'It took his one-time pupil to teach the old man his own lesson,' says Aakar Patel.
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.
Had it been an election of digital campaigns, the cost of the 2019 election would have been far less than what it actually is.
Can the Election Commission step up to the plate and exert its Constitutional powers with non-partisan conviction, asks Mitali Saran.
Pinarayi is exploring the potentials of 'socialism with Indian characteristics'. The next five years under Pinarayi's watch will be a transformative period for Kerala's development, observes M K Bhadrakumar.
'It is this difference in their personalities -- one in eloquent command of the requirements of Parliamentary debate, the other unable to infuse spontaneity in his script -- that will be as much a factor in who India votes for next year, as other more germane factors,' says Vikram Johri.
He is among the contenders for the top job in the event the BJP gets fewer seats in 2019. That may have something to do with him picking up the cudgels for Sushma Swaraj when many in the party kept mum, says Aditi Phadnis.
'Change is the rule of politics.'
'Why should the government keep these laws on hold for 1.5 years when they are so disastrous for the interests and well-being of farmers?'
'Besides electoral opportunism, a sustained vilification of AMU on one or the other pretext helps them sustain their 'everyday communalism', the new strategy of the BJP of the Narendra Damodardas Modi-Amit Anilchandra Shah era,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Kejriwal has given not only Modi and Shah some food for thought, but also to jaded Opposition leaders who must now wonder whether taking on the BJP's majoritarianism by the horns, as they have been doing so far, is the appropriate strategy in such extraordinary times,' notes M K Bhadrakumar.
'In 2014, he was a relatively unknown quantity, and benefited from the apparent difference that he brought to national politics.'
If he doesn't win next year, it will set back the party's prospects in 2024. If he wins, it will be seen as his win as much as the BJP high command's, points out Shekhar Gupta.
'The AMs are a different beast and reflect the political play within the government.' 'Prime Minister Modi does not need to assuage any interest group to take the final call on any decision that belongs rightfully to the Cabinet,' points out Subhomoy Bhattacharjee.
'The NRC is aimed at rounding up and permanently jailing Indian Muslims who cannot produce the documents to satisfy a government which punishes those individuals who do not declare maximum number of Muslims foreigners.' 'It is for this reason that we see so many Indian Muslims protesting these laws and it is for this reason that so many non-Muslims cannot stand by and watch what is happening in their country,' says Aakar Patel.
'The BJP has been tinkering with the Indian Constitution every now and then.' 'Instead of celebrating November 26 as Constitution Day, the BJP was more interested in (the VHP's) Dharam Sabha which was called that day.' 'This shows they believe more in the Ram mandir than in the Constitution.'
