'If the Sanatan Sanstha is a threat to peaceful co-existence and Goa's culture, then I must stand up against such threats.'
'When the story of Elections 2019 is told by an independent writer, the BJP's role in lowering electoral standards will be etched in indelible ink,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'People feel concerned about the future, whether it is the land or the jobs.' 'The BJP came to power in Assam with promises of maati, bheti (home, hearth and identity), land, jobs and culture.' 'Are these going to taken care of? I think those are real concerns.' 'The Assam chief minister (Sarbananda Sonowal) was one of the leaders of the All Assam Students Union which fought for and is one of the signatories to the Assam Accord.' 'Today, his comrade-in-arms (Samujjal Bhattacharya, chief advisor, AASU) is leading the opposition in the streets.'
Thanks to Sharad Pawar and him alone, Maharashtra has shown that the Modi-Shah duo can be halted. The next step is to take the battle to Dilli, says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'This is how Narendra Modi-Amit Shah rule. They are now announcing that these arrested Naxalites want to kill Modi.'
He dropped those perceived to be non-performers or whose integrity came into question, and also where it was felt they needed to learn a lesson or two in humility.
'Parrikar is living for Modi and Shah, not for his motherland or Goa'
'The path of militant Hindutva that the BJP's national leadership chose as its main electoral plank literally dug the grave for the party in Kerala,' says M K Bhadrakumar.
'In Kejriwal's re-election, we are finally seeing someone who has successfully bridged his Hindu identity with ground-level development triumphing over the BJP,' notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
Indian elections are won and lost on 'negative' imageries and campaigns - but not certainly on 'negativity' as a political trait and electoral creed, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
With a substantially weakened Left Front and the Congress, political observers say the anti-Trinamool vote will go to the BJP.
'This pandemic has given him a new platform to perform,' says a member of the government. 'He should feel lucky that he has got an opportunity now to demonstrate to the world his original talent.' 'He needs a visionary script to perform.' Sheela Bhatt reports on the politics of the pandemic.
'It was my own decision to resign as governor.' 'I felt the party needed my services and presence during the election.' 'I did not resign to contest the election, but when the party asked me to contest from Thiruvananthapuram, I agreed.'
'With the Election Commission wisening up to the practice, which strikes at the very root of electoral democracy, the practitioners of cash for votes have been getting more and more ingenious,' points out Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
With Rahul showing a significant lead over Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi in opinion polls across southern India but lagging in the north, the Congress believes his contesting from the south will help galvanise cadres.
'Your failures are not teaching you anything.' 'Your demonetisation failure is not teaching you anything; your GST failure is not teaching you anything; your (revocation of) Article 370 failure is not teaching you anything; your NRC Assam failure is not teaching you.' 'And now you have the CAA!'
Make no mistake, the Bangladeshi and Afghan missions in Chanakyapuri would report verbatim to their capitals the abrasive remarks attributed to the Indian leadership, casting a slur on their countries' political culture and national honour, warns Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'There are 17 million Hindus in Bangladesh and we, in the north east, see this Citizenship (Amendment) Bill as a route for them to enter India on the plea that they are facing persecution in Bangladesh.'
'Your confidence is shaken when the government does what it does these days, but then it is the same confidence that gives you the courage to stand up to the government's high-handedness.' 'There will always be people who will not fear jails or the physical and mental torture that visit citizens protesting against the government's draconian policies and laws.' 'There will always be Indians who will not be afraid to face the consequences of fighting for their Constitutional rights.'
'While it seems that the sole option left for the Shiv Sena chief is to sit in the Opposition and wait and watch, there are two other choices before him to show his party rank and file if he is a quitter or a fighter.'
'The political fallout of the verdict on national politics is pregnant with incredible opportunities.' 'Post-judgment politics can change the ground rules of election campaigning in the coming decades,' says Sheela Bhatt
'Having taken the first step, Priyanka will do well to remember that politics is not a part-time occupation, nor is it meant for guest appearances and cameos.' 'It can't be that come June 2019 and Priyanka goes back to her cocooned life, to re-emerge five years later because the family business is in trouble again,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'If the BJP thinks it is going to overnight transform Bengal into Madhya Pradesh, sorry, that's not going to happen because I have faith in our ethos and culture.'
If Uddhav Thackeray is fazed by the BJP's attempts to build a narrative against his government in order to bring it down, he is not showing it. He has fought against all odds to remain in the CM's chair and faced difficulties with a smile, reports Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'Modi campers are aware that the Sangh may keep a Nitin Gadkari under wraps.' 'He may be pulled out of the hat if push comes to shove and if the Modi-led BJP is unable to deliver a decisive victory.' A revealing excerpt from Kingshuk Nag's new book, Mohan Bhagwat: Influencer-in-Chief.
'Kerala will witness a lot of fireworks in Wayanad and a kind of fight that it has not witnessed so far.'
'Just as the monkey god needed a Jambavan to prod him into realising his superpowers, so did the poll panel need a poke from the Supreme Court into remembering it had an armoury of powers at its disposal to stop the infractions,' notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'Let me stick my neck out and say that Tamil Nadu will keep alive its reputation for landslide election verdicts, with the DMK front winning at least 30 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats going to the polls in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'Should the Congress take Jyotiraditya's departure as good riddance?', asks Mohammad Sajjad.
Caste assertions, including from the upper castes, could have the Sangh Parivar stumble yet again in its efforts to construct a Hindu rashtra.
'They (the government) want to tame everything.' 'The entire systems they are trying to change.'
'Both Doval and Jaishankar are savvy enough to know what is good for them and won't want to meet the fate of Icarus in Greek mythology,' argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'There was no need for opting for such an elaborately and expensively organised spectacle,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
'No country or society ever prospered or remained secure by marginalising more than one-sixth of its own,' warns Shekhar Gupta.
'The Modi government thinks that once the CAA protests are over, they will bring in the NPR that will help to get the NRC.'
'We don't know where he will go from here and how he will conduct his government.'
Modi-Shah BJP has resurrected dangers and the enemy from the past and built a scary jingoism. It's a great diversionary tactic but history shows it never ends well, points out Shekhar Gupta.
'If there are provocations and people try to exploit and manipulate the situation along linguistic, religious lines, then Assam might relapse into its troubled past.'
'The handling of the pandemic, under this totally constitutional and legal three-level dictatorship, has begun to show its downside,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
