Ravi Kishan, the BJP's candidate, is an outsider. The BSP-SP candidate is from the powerful Nishad community. Yogi faces a tough task in ensuring that the Gorakhpur seat, which he represented from 1998 to 2017, stays with the BJP.
By the looks of it, the Congress cannot hope to return to power even in election 2024. What it can do is to start from the bottom, hold organisational elections, which are honest, and co-opt those elected to form teams of office-bearers at all levels, right up to the working committee. By the very nature of the elections that they are going to lose, the party should use the interim to shore up youth power, or whatever remains, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Mother and son refuse to go away despite indications blowing in the wind that their leadership is ringing the death knell of the party, observes Ramesh Menon.
'It seemed it was more than an anti-incumbency vote; it was an outright rejection of the BJP by the people after due deliberation and an expression of their disillusionment with Modi's leadership,' says B S Raghavan.
'Had the BJP gone along with the NPP, that would have eased the task of the Congress of winning more seats.' 'That was a great strategy of the BJP.' 'It helped the NPP get more seats than perhaps if it had gone as a pre-alliance partner with the BJP.'
"This is not the appropriate time to be going ahead with political programmes., However, what really shocked us was as at this point in time when the nation is looking towards its leadership, when the nation wants its leadership to speak to it, the prime minister chooses to address the booth workers of the BJP rather than address the nation," said the Congress.
In a veiled attack on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi days after the Janata Dal-United split from the National Democratic Alliance, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday asserted that the country needs a leader who can unite and not a "divisive" figure.
After the PDP-BJP government was sworn in, the two parties released its Common Minimum Programme, outlining its aims and objectives for the state.
'Your strike rate is very important when it comes to seat-sharing.'
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Wednesday said a "new tradition" of levelling allegations and counter-allegations being observed in Parliament and state Assemblies these days is not proper for the country's constitutional democracy, and stressed the need for constructive debate and discussion in Houses to make democracy "lively and active".
Kejriwal met Rajnath Singh; raised issue of full statehood for Delhi.
'Prior to Pulwama, the BJP appeared to be on the defensive, uncertain of its stop-and-go development programmes, fearful of growing discontent among agriculturists and unemployed youth, and nervous of gathering steam among Opposition parties across regional and caste alliances,' says Sunil Sethi.
The win in UP is especially significant because UP assembly members carry the maximum value of votes in a Presidential election, given the fact that the state is India's most populous.
Second-line AIADMK leaders and cadres alike say that by starting the talks first with the BJP and committing the party to an alliance without discussing seat-sharing, the leadership might have commenced the coalition discourse at the wrong end. According to them, even 20 seats for the BJP may be too many, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The no-frills ceremony comes a day after Kumar snapped ties with the BJP-led NDA and joined hands with the RJD to form a 'mahagathbandhan' government.
'The government or the ruling party has indicated indirectly that you are not supposed to publish anything critical of the government or the senior functionaries of the government.'
The murder of Atiq and his brother and the police encounter with his son have raised many questions about the propriety of how crime is tackled by the Yogi government. But Yogi knows he has the support of the people who are fed up with crime holding the state to ransom for decades, asserts Ramesh Menon.
'The common man and especially civilised people of the state are not agreeing with what has happened and are extending their support'
Fadnavis dismissed his appointment as the party's election in-charge for the state was to do anything with Sushant case.
The fulcrum of victory or defeat of parties attempting to form a government is held by smaller players and those willing to defect.
'Sometimes we use political pressure and sometimes political acumen to get what we want.'
Breaking her silence on the series of allegations levelled by her former ally, the BJP, Mehbooba said it was sad to see the saffron party disown its own initiative and label it a "soft approach".
A day before her scheduled appearance before the Enforcement Directorate in the Delhi excise policy case, Bharat Rashtra Samiti leader K Kavitha led a hunger strike here on Friday seeking the passage of the long-pending Women's Reservation Bill in this Budget session of Parliament.
'The top level will be development and then sab ka saath, sab ka vikas.' 'But at the street level, the tongue will be vicious.'
RLD sources said that the party chief was "taken aback" by the SP's delay in announcing his name as the candidate for the Rajya Sabha elections.
The party is counting on women voters and caste calculus, among others, to swing the crucial polls in its favour
On December 4, the Union Cabinet cleared the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill that seeks to grant citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan if they faced religious persecution there. The government intends to introduce bill in Parliament's Winter Session next week. What is this legislation and why is it contentious?
Earlier this week, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said a law on population control would not serve any purpose but insisted instead on education for girls and women.
'If things don't work on the ground and they continue moving at this pace, it will vanish.'
Why should an elected government, any party's government, need a law to protect itself from its people? asks Shekhar Gupta.
'At the end of the day, there will largely be a single candidate against the NDA's.' 'That itself will produce a different result altogether.'
The message for 2024 is that the man on the street is not going to be euphoric if the G-20 crowns Modi as king-emperor for 2023, or if India sends its first man to space just ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. Even a 'temple consecration' in Ayodhya, or a Uniform Civil Code, or both of them together, may not have enough electoral purchase if fuel and commodity prices are not rolled back, and money-in-the-pocket does not fatten, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'With the victory in Maharashtra and Haryana, the question which needs to be asked is why the government was reluctant to share names of these people, because there is a possibility that they may have been funding the BJP's election campaign.'
The 17-year-old alliance between the Janata Dal-United and the Bharatiya Janata Party will come to an end on Sunday. An announcement to this effect will be made following a crucial meeting of the JD-U at 12.30 pm.
The results are a ringing endorsement of Modi's popularity, his government's achievements in the last five years and his campaign, which centred around national security, nationalism and Hindutva.
As the ruling alliance starts feeling the tremors, discussions on new equations have also started, reports Satyavrat Mishra.
The Left rewrote history in Kerala on Sunday by becoming the first government to get a second term in four decades but its fortunes fell to a historic low in West Bengal where it failed to bag even one seat, resulting in its complete decimation in a state it once ruled for over three decades.
Tyagi said his party will contest on four to five "traditional" seats in Gujarat.
Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Friday ruled out extending any kind of support to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government in the event of the party coming to power after the Lok Sabha polls.
While the Raj Bhavan had on Thursday night said it placed the unprecedented 'dismissal' order on hold, the DMK regime asserted it would pick an appropriate action plan to counter and fight the move against the minister by Ravi, even though he backtracked from it.
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