Jaitley said the Opposition has been using the zero hour to raise the issue for 'getting footage on TV'.
Modi took on the opposition parties, especially the Congress, saying it is the corrupt who are sleepless now.
Accusing Bharatiya Janata Party of fanning communal flames, Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said the party's "politics of hatred" was damaging the country's fabric and apprehended he may also be assassinated like his grandmother and father, who had fallen victims to it.
'It is difficult to imagine the BJP becoming the legatee of Ambedkar. Whichever way one looks at it, Ambedkar's thought and Hindu nationalism are not easy to reconcile.'
Using a sledgehammer to fix some ills can cut down a game at its peak, warns Shekhar Gupta.
The BJP is of the view that Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttarakhand governments could collapse and a Modi wave may resurrect its chances, notes Archis Mohan.
Protests by various parties could be seen as they demanded the Prime Minister Narendra Modi rolled back the demonetisation scheme.
The finance minister is "reasonably confident" that when it comes to the crunch, "it would be extremely difficult even for the Congress party to take a contrarian view" on the GST Bill.
'I don't practise yoga. How am I less of a nationalist than the person who practises it? Is it a crime if I don't practice it?'
'The ruling provides a Constitutional template, it draws boundaries, and there is this expectation that henceforth political parties will not make crude appeals to religion for electoral gains.'
Sonia Gandhi's iftar was meant to be a powerful show of unity of Opposition parties to take on the Modi Sarkar, but that was not to be...
Both Houses adjourned till Wednesday amid din.
Coming full circle, Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party, which left the National Democratic Alliance in 2002, is all set to align with in Bihar for Lok Sabha polls, giving a jolt to Congress' plans to have a "secular" alliance with LJP and Rashtriya Janata Dal.
Asaduddin Owaisi opens up to T S Sudhir on his party's plans for the elections in Uttar Pradesh next year and why he thinks both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party have vitiated the secular atmosphere in the state.
'For short-term gain, the BJP makes extraordinary promises, they take extraordinary decisions, but in the long term it is going to impact both them and the country.'
'This is India, bhai. This kind of country does not exist anywhere in the world.'
The speaker said she was ready to start the debate right away if the House agreed. The debate has been listed in Monday's list of business under Rule 193.
If I were the BJP, I would not be celebrating quite so quickly. It can sweep its heartland in 2014, as it has shown it can do, but that heartland isn't quite big enough. And it can put up a good fight in towns and cities, too - but unless it neutralises AAP or similar political entrepreneurs, it may find itself tantalisingly short, just as has happened to it in Delhi, says Mihir Sharma.
India's Muslims need to assert their educational and economic upliftment and political empowerment rather than be provoked by communal remarks, says Mohammad Sajjad, reflecting on the Malda riot.
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 BJP needs to revisit its strategy ahead of the forthcoming Haryana and Maharashtra assembly elections, says Dharmendra Kumar Singh
'AAP's real value must be measured not by the number of Lok Sabha seats it wins in the election -- which may not exceed 10 or 15 -- and not even by the number of votes it takes from the BJP, but by its ability to deflate Modi's superhuman '56-inch chest' image and the charisma so assiduously manufactured around him by the corporate-controlled media.'
'If Lalu puts the agenda of his son's career ahead of the coalition's interest, this coalition will fare very badly.' 'Lalu will ultimately want that his son becomes deputy chief minister but if he's prepared to wait for some time, nothing bad will happen for the coalition,' Professor Prabhat Ghosh, Director, Asian Development Research Institute, tells Archana Masih/Rediff.com
'The BJP suddenly seems vulnerable. This is not entirely surprising. In the past too, governments and leaders who won a thumping Lok Sabha majority lost popularity in a matter of months... The by-polls results shows that a degree of disenchantment with the Modi government is setting in,' says Praful Bidwai.
'What of Modi? They are willing to take their chances. Maharashtra's Muslims recall how the Congress scared them with the Bal Thackeray bogey for decades, yet, when it came to using all the might of the State to protect them from Shiv Sena goons, be it in 1970, 1984 or 1992-1993, it did nothing. For them, the Congress's secularism is a cruel joke.' 'This argument that we ('seculars') must vote for the 'winning secular candidate' has one more implication: Those who are against Hindutva must forever be stuck with the same corrupt, cynical and tired old parties, who are not even secular,' says Jyoti Punwani.
