A controversy erupted on Tuesday after the opposition parties tagged a video of DMK leader A Raja purportedly showing him making remarks that India has never been a nation, but a subcontinent with diverse practices and cultures, prompting strong response from the BJP which described the comments as a call for 'balkanisation' of the the country and demanded for his arrest.
Chhattisgarh Police arrested Hindu religious leader Kalicharan Maharaj from neighbouring Madhya Pradesh on Thursday over his alleged derogatory remarks against Mahatma Gandhi, following which a court here sent him to police remand for two days, an official said.
At the 'Sarva Jatiye Mahapanchayat', participants from Palwal, Gurugram and other nearby places took part, and it was decided that the yatra will resume from Nalhar in Nuh and then pass through Firozpur Jhirka's Jhir and Singar temples in the district.
Maharashtra minister and NCP leader Nawab Malik on Thursday accused NCB's zonal director Sameer Wankhede and his family of obtaining two separate certificates of his mother following her death in 2015, each mentioning her as Muslim and Hindu.
Amit Shah believes Bandi Sanjay Kumar is 'single-handedly' capable of unseating the TRS government in the December 2023 assembly election and there is no need for the BJP's central leaders to jump into the Telangana scene.
'Vote banks will change affiliations and the BJP will come out with good success in Kerala.'
Amit Shah requested Adityanath to tighten the reins of the HYV's activities, now that he was CM. But Adityanath is not prepared to let go so easily.
They (BJP) don't know the history before 1947 and 1971. They don't know their own history, Khera charged.
'We should not underestimate the power of Hindutva.'
Announcing that a district-wide bandh was being organised in protest against the killing, Chaudhary said that if no headway is made in the investigation within 48 hours, there will be a state-wide stir.
Modi believes that the Congress leadership does not have the political sagacity to undertake a course correction because of its preoccupation about not losing its current gains in the voter base, observes Shekhar Iyer.
Security forces were maintaining a strict vigil across West Bengal in view of Hanuman Jayanti celebrations on Thursday, officials said.
'Nobody is speaking up for Muslims today.' 'Secular parties too have calmed down because they feel this will hurt the Hindu vote (bank).' 'In this scenario, where does a Muslim go?'
While the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party hit out at the MLA and the Congress government, Shivakumar seeking to clarify, said no guarantee scheme will be stopped and it will be continued for five years.
'Only time will tell how difficult it would be for the BJP when Mr Modi may not be in a position to actively run affairs of the party and be its biggest vote catcher.'
'Then the BJP could even split.'
It remains to be seen whether the ban of its parent organisation will weaken the SDPI or will it be able to further consolidate its voter base.
The Opposition's stand on the Ayodhya consecration is puzzling. Their only objection seems to be that the BJP has hijacked a religious event for political benefit. In saying this, the Opposition is either being naive or hypocritical, argues Jyoti Punwani.
A cabinet meeting outside Lucknow -- a rare event -- was held for the first time in Prayagraj in January of 2019.
In the Interim Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that a high power committee would be set up to consider the challenges arising from 'fast population grown and demographic changes.' 'But who wants data? It pays to feed people's fears, insecurities and apprehensions. If such fears don't exist, they must be created,' her husband Parakala Prabhakar says in this fascinating excerpt from his book, The Crooked Timber of New India: Essays on a Republic in Crisis.
Kerala's election discourse operates surreptitiously. Its explicit face focuses on important national and local issues. At the same time, it seeks to secure apt communal equations to ensure votes, notes Shyam G Menon.
Narendra Modi has proved through execution of this event in Ayodhya that amongst all his contemporaries in politics he knows ordinary Indians like none other, notes Sheela Bhatt.
'Kejriwal could have easily deputed someone to step in as chief minister, but being the authoritative and self-centered personality that he is, he chose not to do it.' 'If the AAP loses Delhi, where it has a huge majority, the only one to blame would be Kejriwal,' asserts Ramesh Menon.
'They are happy for the Hindu community as Ram Lalla is consecrated in Ayodhya.'
With the 2024 Lok Sabha elections less than eight months away, the SP is experimenting with yet another template of combining a soft Hindutva tenor with its time-tested Muslim-Yadav combination to reclaim its lost political capital vis-a-vis the BJP.
The broad patterns tell us that to sweep UP, the BJP has to retain its voteshares of the past three elections. But to merely win it, the party can do so while losing some voteshare, and perhaps up to as much as 10 per cent, observes Aakar Patel.
Godhra is one of the 14 seats which the AIMIM is contesting in the next month's elections to the 182-member Gujarat assembly.
'He should not come to Kerala and fight against the CPI which is an integral part of the INDIA alliance'
'Had it not been for the complicity of the state and Biren Singh's leadership, these riots would not have spread this far and for so long.'
It is not much of an issue just now, but it could become one if the idea of caste census captures socio-political imagination, going beyond electoral tags and identities, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
"Is it any surprise that the new Parliament is being consecrated with typically false narratives from WhatsApp University? The BJP-RSS distorians stand exposed yet again with maximum claims, minimum evidence," Congress general secretary communications Ramesh said in his tweet.
'Just keep telling people that we have fixed the Muslims, and they will not be bothered about their empty stomachs or empty wallets.'
Delhi Lt Governor V K Saxena has recommended an NIA probe against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for allegedly receiving political funding from the banned terrorist organisation 'Sikhs for Justice', Raj Niwas sources said on Monday.
Earlier on Wednesday, the district court ruled that a priest can perform prayers before the idols in a cellar of the Gyanvapi Masjid, a significant development in the legal battle over the mosque adjacent to the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
January 22, 2024 has passed into history. Scenes from a day of religious fervour in many parts of India.
Later, Pratibha Singh said she and her son Vikramaditya Singh have received a joint invitation and she is yet to take a call on attending the consecration ceremony at Ayodhya on January 22.
'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.
Hindu religious leader Kalicharan Maharaj, arrested over alleged derogatory remarks about Mahatma Gandhi, was on Friday sent in judicial custody by a court in Chhattisgarh's Raipur district.
'We are very close to become a theocratic State where Hinduism is the official religion of the government.'
'The Muslims in Karnataka are safe and secure. The state government belongs to everybody.'
'There is no peace in the Kashmir Valley.'