From handling the party organisation, finalising candidates, shooting the breeze with the media to pow-wows with diplomats and liaising with the PMO -- Arun Jaitley is the BJP's chief backroom manager in this election, reports R Rajagopalan.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee would seek to placate the hawks in the RSS by stating that the writing of history should not be one-sided. At the same time, he would project a moderate 'Nehruvian' image of himself as the archetypal liberal politician who would strive to attain a balance between conflicting viewpoints. A fascinating profile of the former prime minister and Bharat Ratna by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Shankar Raghuraman.
'The unprecedented bitterness and rancour that marked this election campaign need not spill over into government and governance,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
In the Modi government, he was the mentor -- he groomed half a dozen of those who became ministers. Some remembered, others did not -- Jaitley seemed to care little. Aditi Phadnis reports.
'By holding forth on Swadeshi economics, Bhagwat is showing his intent to fight back,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'This election was the first opportunity where Kashmiris told the world they do not agree with the Centre's policies and are unhappy about their disempowerment.'
'The burden of the BJP's song is not development and delivery.' 'It is communalism,' argues Aakar Patel.
In the Narendra Modi-Shah masterminded regime, organisational elections have acquired the gravity, authority and colour of a national or state poll, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
Modi accuses Congress of spreading 'lies, confusion and pessimism'
Losing power after having come so close, Yediyurappa was determined to regain the reins of power from H D Kumaraswamy.
The 91-year-old leader said, 'Right from its inception, the BJP has never regarded those who disagree with us politically as our 'enemies', but only as our adversaries.'
While Yechury feels CPI-M should unite with others to fight the 'growing danger of fascistic forces', Karat camp says it should fight the BJP, but not have any leaning towards the Congress or other opposition parties.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf traces the trajectory of Lal Kishan Advani from the highs of the 1990s to the present, when he may have to watch the elections from the sidelines.
Pakistan must be deleted once and for all from the vocabulary of Kashmir-related negotiations with a finality that is irrevocable, asserts Vivek Gumaste.
Targeting the Delhi government, the party president also accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of getting into fights with the Centre for political reasons.
Shah reviewed the party's preparations and strategy for the Lok Sabha election due next year.
The prime minister also suggested a single voters' list for Lok Sabha, assembly and panchayat polls, saying separate lists are a waste of resources.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday said the government has no other option but to extend President's Rule in Jammu and Kashmir as the Election Commission wants to hold assembly elections in the state by the end of 2019.
Modi said he saw the election results, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, as the "foundation of the new India".
'Karpoori Thakur must be remembered by people today who are tired of witnessing fractious politics where corruption, bigotry, hatred and violence seems to have become distressingly recurrent,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Naidu was an Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad activist during the Emergency and was arrested and jailed.
While the Indian Government was aware of it, it tried to play it down and instead referred to it as genocide against the Bengali community in Bangladesh so as to avoid an outcry from the leaders of the then Jan Sangh, the predecessor of the today's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, says Gary J Bass, author of the book The Blood Telegram: Nixon Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide, which recently hit the book stores.
Whether it took the corona crisis to bring about the transformation, or otherwise, the change ought to be welcome, notes Virendra Kapoor.
Modi said both the ruling party and the media may have expectations as well complaints from each other but they have to get along happily amid these differences.
Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel on Monday said he was not unhappy with the Bharatiya Janata Party's decision to select Bhupendra Patel as the state's next chief minister, soon after the CM-designate met him at his residence in Ahmedabad in the morning.
Even as politics engaged him more, he never hid his way of life. On one occasion, Morarji Desai pleaded with him to stop drinking publicly. "You stick to your pissky and I'll stick to my whisky'' he is supposed to have told him.
While Karat is opposed to any understanding with the Congress, Yechury is of the view that the situation warrants putting together a national alternative to the BJP, reports Archis Mohan.
The BJP's message is that the past must be reinvented as creatively as imagination allows, states Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
If Advani's ideological leadership galvanised the party's cadres and core support, Vajpayee soaring oratory, common touch and easy charm won over the masses.
Nowhere else has caste, power politics, and generational change come together to form a combination so potent that it is combustible.
'Like in cricket, M S Dhoni was the captain and Virat Kohli played under him.' 'Then Dhoni played under Kohli.' 'Now imagine, having a second switch.' 'That is the analogy here, and I find no other example in Indian politics, or even world politics.'
'...It won't help the party run a peaceful and equitable India,' warns Vir Sanghvi.
The defence minister has to correct a major asymmetry. Will his discipline come in the way?
'The situation is normal now. The Kashmiri Pandits should come back.'
To believe that the key job of his senior ministers is to ensure that his image be kept intact whatever be the outcome of his policies is to expect too much even of someone as ambitious as Narendra Modi, asserts Rashme Sehgal.
Bharatiya Janata Party stands for abrogation of Article 370 in line with Jana Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mookerjee's views but has put it on the back-burner keeping in mind its 'coalition dharma' in Jammu and Kashmir where it is in power with Peoples Democratic Party, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Sunday.
It is likely that the party's allies in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, two of the five states going to the polls in April-May, might insist on allocating fewer seats than they did in 2016, reports Archis Mohan.
If Tamil Nadu BJP President K Annamalai bought it in 2015, did he get prior approval from the Union home ministry, and did he include it in his annual wealth returns, sections of the media want to know. N Sathiya Moorthy on the curious case of the 'Rafale' watch.
The fact that Home Minister Amit Shah recently met Raje was a marker that Delhi will be compelled to take her more seriously than it would care to. Like B S Yediyurappa, she's a regional chieftain who can't be discarded at will, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
'For the Congress, the family is the final court of appeal.' 'If there is no family, all leaders are equal.' 'If all leaders are equal, anyone can lead the Congress.' 'So every time the family has stayed in the background, the Congress has split,' points out Aditi Phadnis.
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