For the Congress to be taken seriously, it has to convince those around it that it could actually double its Lok Sabha seat share from the existing 52, and vote-share by a third more from the stagnating 20 per cent in 2014 and 2019, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Fears of the Congress not having a credible face, after the death of its three-time chief minister Sheila Dikshit last July, and ceding its vote bank to the Aam Aadmi Party came true with the Arvind Kejriwal-led party capturing the space once occupied by the grand old party.
'This is not a moral but a political question yet its importance is likely to grow with every passing day,' says Karan Thapar.
The party is likely to look back at 2019 with more than a touch of satisfaction as the year saw nullification of Article 370, criminalisation of triple talaq, enactment of CAA and a Supreme Court order paving the way for Ram temple construction in Ayodhya, issues which have agitated Hindutva cadres for decades.
Gandhi said that he had already told the chief ministers of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh that these states should take the lead in ushering in the second Green Revolution.
Seventy-one parliamentary constituencies spread across nine states voted in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections.
BJP candidate was attacked in West Bengal, EVM glitches were reported in New Delhi.
Former Election Commission observer K J Rao says political parties are in a race to display money power by erecting hoardings and banners across Patna. MI Khan reports
'I hope the honourable PM and Mr Shah take steps to ensure that the NDA doesn't split.'
The BJP, whose campaign was focussed more on issues related to nationalism and Shaheen Bagh, failed to find support among voters.
Bihar's ruling Janata Dal-United General Secretary K C Tayagi said on Monday that there is 'communalism' in Bharatiya Janata Party's DNA which is more dangerous than castiesm.
Biennial elections are being held for 58 Rajya Sabha seats across several states and by-poll for one in Kerala.
While those who attended 'Livelihoods in Lockdown' learnt a lot, was anyone from the government listening?
The BJP said, in a statement, that its workers held protests in district headquarters across the country, with its national general secretary Arun Singh leading the stir in Bhubaneswar, Maharashtra party chief Chandrakant Patil in Mumbai and Bihar unit president Sanjay Jaiswal in Patna, among other places.
BJP president J P Nadda drew a parallel between the post-poll result violence in West Bengal with the bloodshed during India's Partition, while his colleagues compared the Trinamool Congress with Nazis, as the saffron party's leaders protested in different cities on Tuesday against attacks targeting its workers in the state.
Yadav is all set to approach the Election Commission of India to claim the election symbol of the party -- 'arrow'.
It is good BJP leaders filed offences against makers of Tandav web series over its content, but they will be truly men if the party registers cases also against journalist Arnab Goswami who insulted martyrdom of Indian soldiers, the Shiv Sena said on Thursday.
'The prime ministership needs a statesman, not a politician, and 18 months into the job Modi is yet to learn the difference between the two,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
The hounding of Rhea Chakraborty in the Sushant Singh Rajput case is a drug that is being carefully pumped into India's veins to make it comfortably numb as it is wracked by economic ruin and disease, notes Sumit Bhattacharya.
Mohammad Shahabuddin, in prison for over a decade, still inspires fear, a reminder of the 'jungle raj' when political murders were commonplace in Bihar.
'If the leadership goes back to Rahul Gandhi, then there will be a perception problem about the drama about his exit a year-and-a-half ago.'
Articulate segments of Muzaffarpur have been at the the forefront of all anti-establishment mobilisation, which makes their silence over the atrocities in a shelter home in the town puzzling. Could it be that if those accused of horrific crimes belong to dominant castes and if the victims belong to the vulnerable groups, then the middle classes become mute, asks Mohammad Sajjad.
Counting of votes is underway in assembly byelection to 58 seats in 11 states including Madhya Pradesh where the results will decide the fate of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.
The United Progressive Alliance government's decision to go ahead with an ordinance allowing convicted MPs and MLAs to continue in office and contest elections is a clear move to help out beleaguered Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Complaints of electronic voting machine malfunctioning poured in from several booths on Tuesday during the third and largest phase of Lok Sabha polls which saw voters turning out in large numbers to cast their vote in 116 seats, including all constituencies of Gujarat and Kerala.
Celebrations broke out as the Grand Alliance was all set for a thumping victory in the Bihar polls.
Till he took over, political parties ferrying people to the polling stations was considered quite 'normal', and it was during Seshan's stint that it became impossible with the model code being made sacrosanct.
In a country where 'booth-capturing' and open intimidation of voters used to be a part of the poll processes until not very long ago -- and remains a factor even now - postal vote can challenge the very credibility of the electoral process as a whole, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Malik, who was appointed as the Bihar governor in September last year, will take charge of Jammu and Kashmir at a time when it is under governor's rule.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Giriraj Singh has gone underground after a court in Jharkhand issued a warrant against him for his inflammatory speech that people who do not vote for Narendra Modi will have to find a place in Pakistan.
With Maharashtra and Haryana assembly elections, results for 51 assembly and two Lok Sabha bypolls spread across 18 states were declared on Thursday. Here are state-wise results of the bypolls.
For the fifth day in a row, the active cases of COVID-19 remained below 9 lakh.
From devising a seat-sharing formula for the National Democratic Alliance in Bihar for the 2019 Lok Sabha election to wooing young voters, the former poll strategist has ensured his position as number 2 within the party.
The BJP has bettered its show this time as its vote share in several states is well over 50 per cent, nothing short of a statistical wonder in Indian electoral history.
As many as 28 out of 41 sitting women MPs, including Sonia Gandhi, Hema Malini and Kirron Kher, retained their seats in Lok Sabha.
The TMC expects to emerge victorious by way of a majority of minority votes and a minority of majority votes, notes Arun Bhatnagar, a retired IAS officer.
In this event, it is the IAF that showed true professionalism, telling the boss they weren't going to fly in that weather. You can see what professionalism and moral courage it takes to say no to your prime minister. Only things like that can keep him safe, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'We are collectively ignorant about our intellectual legacies,' says writer-historian Ramchandra Guha.
While almost all the members belonging to the ruling National Democratic Alliance took oath by swearing in the name of god, Human Resources Development Minister Prakash Javadekar, who was re-elected to the Upper House from Maharashtra, took oath affirming his allegiance to the Constitution of India.
'Harassment' is the objective, not detention.
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