'The brazen politics, in this series of bullying of AMU by functionaries of the Union and provincial governments, utterly disregarding the fact that the matter is sub judice, is quite obvious.' 'One needs to see through the desperate politics of the BJP which governs both Uttar Pradesh and the Centre, especially its woes over its Dalit support base,' says AMU Professor Mohammad Sajjad.
If at all the series can be criticised, it would be for its all-Brahmin characters and keeping out the caste problems, the misogyny and the backwardness and ugliness of rural India, points out Deepa Gahlot.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
'About 90 per cent of our netas have no loyalty and will go with the winner.'
Opposition parties demanded that all elections in the future be held through ballot papers.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Saturday said her party would contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections on its own.
According to political analysts, Mayawati's social engineering to unite the lower castes with the upper ones seems to have backfired.
The list has been sent to Governor Ram Naik for approval.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Thursday launched a frontal attack on Bharatiya Janata Party's PM candidate Narendra Modi saying the country will be "ruined" due to spike in communal riots if he is voted to power.
The panchayat polls will be seen as a kind of verdict from the hinterland for Yogi Adityanath ahead of the crucial 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections.
He said those making jokes on cows and buffaloes forget that the livelihood of crores of people depends on "pashudhan".
Here are some reactions by political leaders to the five-state election verdict.
Unless Punjab has a chief minister who is able to look beyond community/vote bank politics, carry all sections of society, stop appeasing while addressing genuine concerns and break the stranglehold of the SGPC over Sikh affairs, my beloved home state is bound to die and conversions will be rampant, warns Sanjeev Nayaar.
Modi wants the BJP to gets an additional 10% of the vote share from what it won in 2019. Plans are afoot to get new faces to replace MPs with poor chances of winning. Sources say more than 100 MPs are like to be axed, notes Modi biographer Ramesh Menon.
'How can the BJP give Muslim candidates tickets if they don't have any good Muslim candidates?'
UP now has 16 ministers, the maximum from any state, in an apparent bid to keep the Dalit and other backward class votebank content.
She has been appointed general secretary for Uttar Pradesh (East), while Jyotiraditya Scindia holds charge of UP West.
Why did Karnataka's economic prosperity fail to influence the nature of electoral promises made by political parties in the run-up to the assembly elections? asks A K Bhattacharya.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's comprehensive defeat to the Congress in Karnataka where the two parties ran a campaign of contrasts has left the ruling party much to ponder as the two rivals are facing a direct contest in three more state polls this year in the run-up to the all-important 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
In the same breath, the RPI-A leader said, "No one can challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- neither Congress president Rahul Gandhi, nor SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, nor BSP supremo Mayawati."
'They know that if they do not tie up with the Congress, then the minorities will move to the Congress.'
The nod for reservation for the Jat community in the central list of Other Backward Classes in nine states has been given despite the National Commission for Backward Classes opposing such a move.
'The Covid situation is like demonetisation.' 'People were upset with the government initially, but eventually they voted for the BJP again.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party announced a major organisational reshuffle in the party, appointing Hindu hardliner Keshav Maurya and former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa as state party presidents in Uttar Pradesh and Karntaka respectively.
'The only narrative before India is what Modi and the BJP is presenting.' 'Nationalism has been taken as a serious plank by the BJP and RSS.' 'They want to keep the nationalism thing alive to make people forget the economic reality.'
Kamalrukh said she is a Parsi who got married to the "Dabangg" composer under the Special Marriages Act.
The outcome in UP is far more significant than in the other states going to the polls next year. An unlikely setback in UP can cramp the Modi government, virtually making it a lame-duck two years ahead of the 2024 parliamentary poll, observes Virendra Kapoor.
The party also rejigged its Central Election Committee and included former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, Union Minister Bhupender Yadav, Om Mathur and its women wing chief Vanathi Srinivasan.
Faced with one of the worst showing in Lok Sabha elections in which her party failed to open its account, BSP chief Mayawati on Saturday said the parties which had supported the UPA at the Centre faced the anger of the people towards the Congress-led alliance.
Once the Covid crisis subsides in the state, the NEET exam this year, whether conducted or cancelled, could become an electoral issue next year, along with the BC-MBC reservations issue, especially the 'creamy layer' aspect, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
In a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his 'fakir' remark, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Tuesday said his note ban decision has turned a majority of the country's people into pauper but not him, and it will lead to Bharatiya Janata Party's defeat in Uttar Pradesh.
"To all casteist leaders I would like to say my only caste is poor, my only identity is poor."
'Jignesh Mevani has many strengths: Youth, articulation, fearlessness, proficiency with social media, political and ideological flexibility.' 'Also focus, as in targeting the BJP as the one and only enemy for now and using that justification to align with the rest,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the Bharatiya Janata Party has decided it would not adopt the path of appeasement and vote bank politics.
Modi and Shah can't afford to lose any of the 24 per cent Dalit vote of 2014, says Shekhar Gupta.
Mayawati has accused 'Ravan' of being a BJP agent who is dividing the scheduled castes.
'We all know that when the Babri Masjid was demolished, P V Narasimha Rao was prime minister.' 'He did not do anything to stop the demolition.'
"Desh ke chowikdar ki pehredari mein, sansadhono ki chori karai ja rahi hai (the country's resources are being looted under the watch of the country's gateman)," she said in a derisive reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The political turmoil in Bihar has pushed the law and order to the back burner.
In remarks that could raise eyebrows within Congress, former Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari on Monday questioned the relevance of reservation in the 21st century.
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