Vijay has a lot of young and middle-aged women fans, but as voters, they are possibly now with the DMK, or remain with the AIADMK. Recapturing this constituency would have helped Vijay's political launch and the GOAT script and dialogues could have gone a long way in helping out. But the kind of script and screenplay and the unusually and equally unnecessary long run-time (3 hours, 3 minutes) that GOAT offers takes the film experience over the heads of those that are not familiar with secret agents and uranium theft in Tamil cinema, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Wouldn't it be better to join the celebrations with the vast Hindu majority while at the same time criticising Mr Modi/BJP/RSS for politicising it? notes Shekhar Gupta.
Television visuals showed BJP workers mobbing the car at Khandoji Baba Chowk and vandalising it, resulting in the vehicle's windscreen and side panes getting damaged.
'The feeling of love, brotherhood and composite culture exists among you all. I feel sad that the RSS and BJP are trying to break this culture,' Gandhi said in his address to Congress office-bearers and workers at a party function in Jammu on the second day of his two-day visit to Jammu.
The Congress in Kerala on Friday approached the Election Commission of India (ECI) against the decision of Doordarshan to telecast the controversial movie The Kerala Story, saying it was a 'tacit effort' to divide society on religious grounds to further the electoral prospects of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Gandhi's comments came at a time when the BJP is trying to distance itself from its erring MP.
"The opposition parties should draw proper lessons from these results and draw up plans to put up an effective united opposition to the BJP state-wise by marshalling all the forces," the CPI-M said in a statement.
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday claimed a "Godhra-like" incident may take place during the "return journey" of the large number of people expected to converge at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh from across the nation for the inauguration of the Ram temple.
A shoe was hurled at Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Monday during his roadshow in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh.
The Assam police suo motu registered the FIR against Gandhi and several other leaders for "wanton acts of violence" here during the party's 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra' on Tuesday.
'The Opposition parties will continue to woo Chandrababu Naidu even though he has said he will support the BJP.'
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday was joined by the mother of Rohith Vemula, a Dalit student of the University of Hyderabad who died by suicide in 2016 following alleged harassment, in the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Hyderabad.
Archbishop Anil Couto's instructions, though politically charged, are not unusual or unprecedented.
As BJP leaders went all out to project the event as a moment of national pride, some leaders were directly critical of the ceremony with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, belonging to the Communist Party of India-Marxist, slamming the state's role in the Ram Temple consecration, saying the line that demarcates religion and state seems to be 'getting thinner and thinner'.
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.
If the party's members aren't sure what it stands for, see no path to wealth or power, and endure control by a dynasty, which, almighty as it is within the party, cannot get them the votes, they are likely to explore options, notes Shekhar Gupta.
'Rahul Gandhi is the face of the INDIA alliance. If he contests against a BJP candidate and defeats her/him, it will send a strong message.'
Is the unusually and unbearably scorching Sun and the general laxity, bordering on laziness, among voters, responsible, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Aakraman ho raha hai, maza aa raha hai, says Rahul Gandhi.
Seventy-seven MLAs were present in the assembly during the voting.
'This country is not of one culture. We must live together and we must respect each other.'
'The message the government is sending out is you are not safe if your dare oppose this regime.' 'The entire incident gives you an understanding of what happened in Germany during the Third Reich.' 'This is jingoism and this is not nationalism of any kind.'
While Raj Bhavan issued the statement, dramatic scenes were witnessed at Calicut University where the Governor lashed out at the police for not removing the offending banner.
Deriving from Narendra Modi's continuing charisma, the proposed scheme, if and when implemented, can cut both ways. That is to say, if Modi can win, he can lose. Or, someone else in his place, later on, could lose as much as he could win in his time, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP lashed out at the Congress for its "promotion of violence" and dubbed its yatra as "Bharat Todo Yatra".
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.
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.
This will pave the way for emergence of 24,000 new panchayat-level leaders in Telangana, he said.
The senior police officer said the four, after interrogation, revealed their roles and that the police now knows all the participants, conspirators and collaborators involved in the killing of the RSS leader.
Three Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workers have been arrested for allegedly carrying out the murder of a Popular Front of India leader in Palakkad district of Kerala on April 15, the police said on Tuesday, and added that the trio were friends of an RSS leader who was killed in Palakkad in November last year.
Members of the Popular Front of India and its political offshoot Social Democratic Party of India as well as the Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were among those involved in the two recent back-to-back murders in Palakkad district, the Kerala police said on Monday.
Such a course would require a Constitutional Amendment, requiring a two-thirds majority in both Houses of Parliament. Even assuming that the INDIA combine comes to power at the Centre next year, a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha could way off the mark for them, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP took a dig at Gandhi, saying the Congress vice president was visiting temples as his party has failed to win elections in the state for long time.
'Is the agenda of the RSS according to the Constitution of India? They talk of Hindu Raj, Hindutva. Is this Constitutional?'
A video showing the incident involving school teacher, Tripta Tyagi, and the Class 2 boy in Muzaffarnagar has gone viral on social media eliciting strong words from several political parties.
The students have alleged that they were manhandled by the police and university security inside the North Campus premises.
'Initially, most people willingly stood for hours in queues to withdraw cash because they believed that after 50 days, black money would come out, some big men would be punished and perhaps jailed. Again, nothing happened.' 'Now the talk is that small people have been punished while the rich and the powerful have got away.' 'The RSS is not going out of its way to counter the view. Let the BJP explain.'
The Rashtriya Janata Dal national executive meeting on Sunday witnessed a ruckus as RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav's elder son and Bihar cabinet minister Tej Pratap Yadav came out of the meeting fuming and called the party's national general secretary Shyam Rajak an agent of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
Yadav also called for firming up of an Opposition alliance to take on the BJP in the 2024 general elections, suggesting that the Congress must focus on over 200 seats on which it is in direct fight with the saffron party, while taking a 'backseat' in states where regional parties are a formidable force.
The opposition party also said that it would like to remind the BJP that Hindu Mahasabha president Syama Prasad Mookerjee aligned with Jinnah's Muslim League to form the government in Bengal during the British rule.
