'Elections are fought to win.' 'In our party, the leadership takes the final decision, and our leaders are very clear about it.'
Rahul Gandhi said that the ongoing Lok Sabha election is aimed at saving the country's Constitution.
Voters, it is said, get the government they deserve. We will soon see what voters in Maharashtra choose. Till then, a sense of helplessness and scepticism hangs in the air, notes Ramesh Menon.
Discontentment seems to be increasing by the day in sections of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal with several leaders of both camps expressing displeasure over the selection of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
From bhikshus of Ashokan 3rd century BC and medieval Sufis to Oxfam, Omidyar and Soros now, non-State actors have any real power only when they work in conjunction with a real State, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
Even before the first votes are counted in Maharashtra, fissures have emerged within the ruling Mahayuti and the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) on who will head the next government. Both camps are claiming the chief minister's post, with constituents in both camps laying claim over the chief minister's post. The MVA, consisting of the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and NCP (SP), and the Mahayuti, comprising the BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP, have expressed confidence that their respective alliance will form the next government after votes are counted on Saturday. While a majority of exit polls have predicted that Mahayuti will retain power, a few have favored the MVA.
In 2019, actor turned-politician Sumalatha Ambareesh, an independent backed by the BJP, won by defeating then Kumaraswamy's son and joint candidate of the then ruling Congress-JD-S alliance Nikhil by 1,25,876 votes.
From the 30-share Sensex pack, Mahindra & Mahindra, Larsen & Toubro, State Bank of India, Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank and Bajaj Finance were the biggest gainers. JSW Steel and Infosys were the laggards.
There is an impression within the Tamil Nadu BJP -- although no one is airing it -- that over-exposure for Narendra Modi over the past months may work against party candidates, as they have triggered a near-continuous social media debate on his achievements and failures, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'He only promotes those leaders who will never show any resistance to him in future.'
'Ajit Pawar is trying to sideline us; he is trying to be in the BJP's good books at our cost.'
Reddy dared the saffron party to prove its claim that the Congress government in the southern state did not fulfil its poll guarantees.
Kharge also hit back at the BJP for criticising his party colleague Rahul Gandhi over a copy of the Constitution with a red cover. He showed a picture of PM Modi gifting a similar copy to former president Ramnath Kovind.
Two-time chief minister and five-time MLA Janata Dal-Secular leader H D Kumaraswamy has once again demonstrated his political acumen by bagging a seat in the union council of ministers, despite his party joining the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance just last year.
The Bharatiya Janata Party broke into the Congress bastion bagging the Kathlal assembly seat for the first time in five decades winning the by-poll, giving Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi a victory gift on his 61st birthday.
No single individual, institution, or action is to blame for this. The BJP is responding in kind -- definitely not without checking with its government. And they wait for Mr Trump, notes Shekhar Gupta.
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