Since much of the voting was on religious lines, Mamata's rural focus became irrelevant.
'The unprecedented bitterness and rancour that marked this election campaign need not spill over into government and governance,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
The MNS chief gave the Western Railway an ultimatum of 15 days to evict illegal hawkers from all railway stations, failing which, he said, he will deal with them in the 'MNS style'.
As the Narendra Modi government nears completing a year in office, the Congress on Wednesday stepped up its offensive against the prime minister accusing him of weakening democracy by running a "one-man show" while scoring maximum on "arrogance" and minimum on governance.
Bracing for the polls, Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday said he will focus on Delhi for the next five to 10 years and any decision on fighting elections in other states will be taken only after people's mandate in the capital.
The Congress leader said democracy allows dissent and debate and not monologues in an apparent barb at Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"The situation has already improved in Gorakhpur and it would soon improve in the state as well," he said.
Modi will need to understand that the formula for success will have to be Local Leaders + Modi and not Modi alone...Shivraj Singh Chouhan is in the running for prime minister... The AAP will have to ally with other parties if it hopes to make any dent in the Lok Sabha election. Dr B Venkatesh Kumar, Professor at the Centre for Governance and Public Policy at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, lists some learnings from the 2013 assembly election results.
Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday announced his decision to take on Narendra Modi in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in this temple city while appealing for support to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate.
The prime minister highlighted the gains made during his last four years vis-a-vis the previous governments to suggest that he has lived up to the promise of hope he had offered to the electorate in 2014.
Some 92 Khaps, a highly influential self-styled caste councils, in Haryana hold the key to the outcome of Assembly polls even though Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out to them ahead of hustings.
Volunteers have been asked to provide details of their core competencies for future projects, says Mayank Mishra
'All statue-building is an exercise in hubris, but Mr Adityanath's enterprise begs a question: Can a state with rampant child malnutrition and 325 children dying in a Gorakhpur hospital afford Rama's benediction?' asks Sunil Sethi.
Tendulkar was slated to initiate a short duration discussion on the right to play and the future of sports in India, which was disrupted by the protests that led Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu to adjourn the House for the day.
Till 2000, K N Govindacharya, former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak, was considered the Bharatiya Janata party's chief ideologue. Govindacharya, who now heads the Rashtriya Swabhiman Andolan, which opposes anti-people policies of governments, tells Sahil Makkar and Archis Mohan the Narendra Modi-led government is still in the election mode.
Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley on why the Congress may end up getting its lowest figure in the history of Indian parliamentary elections.
Protests were held in many cities across the country. So far, no one has been arrested for the attack on students and teachers at JNU even as clamour for resignation of the V-C grew.
Rediff.com gives you a look at newbies in the Council of Ministers
'Is Ansari flagging a genuine concern? Is a rectification called for?' 'And finally: Do minorities matter?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
The year 2015 was a mixed bag for the Grand Old party --with the performance in Bihar being a consolation while the the National Herald case came back to haunt its leadership.
An entirely new lexicon of political jibes emerged during the elections
Taking Narendra Modi head-on, Rahul Gandhi on Saturday accused Gujarat government of offering Rs 40,000 crore worth of farmland at throw away prices to an industrialist while seeking higher rates from the Air Force.
'Was there an element of orchestration between Mukherjee and Mohan Bhagwat about their speeches to the effect that the former would leave out any reference to Muslims while the RSS chief will not talk about a Hindu rashtra?' asks Amulya Ganguli.
Supension of senior IPS officer Amitabh Thakur, who was locked in a tussle with Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, on Tuesday set off a political storm with the Opposition terming it an "act of revenge" by the ruling party.
The Bihar CM will have make good on his poll promises of a clean administration, providing piped water, toilets, pucca roads and unemployment allowance
Posters accusing Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal of being on a "mission" to prevent BJP prime minister nominee Narendra Modi from forming government at the Centre have surfaced across the city.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's forward march has slowed down. Can Arvind Kejriwal eclipse Narendra Modi in the upcoming general election? Modi, feels Praful Bidwai, may have peaked too soon and Arvind Kajriwal's politics may find new takers.
'The book has immense value because it reveals the inner workings of the think-tank which appears to provide facts and insights to Modi, though he himself takes the final decisions and articulates them in his characteristic rhetorical style,' says Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Phadnavis on Sunday faced flak for "brokering the deal" with Maharashtra Navnirman Sena instead of enforcing law and order, amid the row around the release of Karan Johar's "Ae Dil Hai Mushkil".
'The reason I call Dadri a landmark turning point in our politics is the relatively muted response of the self-styled secular forces.' 'Top leaders of the Congress haven't even taken a padyatra to the village, just a 40 minute drive from Delhi. Lalu, Nitish, Mamata, all claimants to the secular vote, are afraid of messing with an issue involving the cow.' 'Holiness of the cow has now become as multi-partisan an issue as hostility to Pakistan,' says Shekhar Gupta.
The Sangh's leadership has boxed itself into a tight situation. It now needs to wait and see if Modi can deliver in the Lok Sabha polls, says Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The NDA candidate tells the Election Commission that the Maoists plan to kidnap him.
A clean sweep for the BJP and the emergence of the AAP do not look good for the Congress, which now faces a serious leadership crisis, says Bharat Bhushan
On the intervening night of September 22-23, 2012, three Dalit youths were killed when police opened fire to disperse a violent mob to control a clash between Dalits and OBC Bharwad community members at Thangadh town in Surendranagar district.
Rahul Gandhi's attack on Narendra Modi over the 2002 riots in his first-ever television interview indicates that the Congress will shift focus to 'contrasting ideologies' with the BJP before the general election.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's spin doctors are on an overdrive these days to project him as a "tough talking" leader following a spate of critical media reports about his sudden silence on key issues, says rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal.
Narendra Modi has made it easier for businesses to buy farm land.
'Both Nehru and Patel were thorough gentlemen and whatever their differences never disrespected each other.' 'Neither Modi nor Rahul Gandhi has much in them to claim such legacies.' 'They are symptomatic of the sad days that have befallen the nation midwifed and contemplated by Nehru and Patel,' says Mohan Guruswamy.
'We cannot capture the mind space of today's youth by evoking past sacrifices. Politics is about hope; hope for the future. The Congress hankers about the past too much.'
The need of the hour is not a divisive, slanging match of accusations and counter-accusations, but a call for sanity,' says Vivek Gumaste.
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