Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday urged party leaders in Kerala to shed their differences and fight the coming assembly polls unitedly
The crisis will strengthen Nitish Kumar's position as Lalu's troubles erodes his bargaining power within the ruling coalition in Bihar.
Here are some of the big political leaders' who await their fate on Monday.
The RJD chief also hailed the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party alliance in Uttar Pradesh.
A day after holding marathon talks with Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, Congress poll strategist Prashant Kishor on Monday held closed-door meeting with Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav
The BJP could win only 16 out of 57 seats where Shah campaigned.
'If Nitish goes alone, he will be washed away.' 'If he hand holds the BJP, it will again crush him because it will be known that he has sided with the BJP because he doesn't have any other option.' 'Lalu knows Nitish coming back will be a political gain for Lalu.'
A section within the RSS feels Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani should be projected as the BJP's CM candidate in UP, says Rajeev Sharma.
With tempers rising on intolerance, it will be hard to run House proceedings.
The Congress is finding it tough to accommodate defeated senior leaders in the Rajya Sabha as it does not have the numerical strength in various assemblies to win the seats.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has shown it is possible to form an electoral base with pro-women policies that matter, so why don't other political parties replicate it, asks Devanik Saha.
The Bharatiya Janata Party appeared to cede ground in Uttar Pradesh where Samajwadi Party was leading on six of the 11 Assembly seats where bypolls were held while it was neck and neck with Congress in Gujarat and behind in Rajasthan, exactly four months after it swept the three states in Lok Sabha elections.
The Rajya Sabha on Wednesday approved the biggest tax reform since Independence.
The Uttar Pradesh by-election will be the real test for the Modi government. By-election results are not a referendum on Modi but the time has come to analyse whether the Modi government is succeeding in assuring people that the promises it made would be fulfilled, says Dharmendra Kumar Singh.
Assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal, Odisha and Sikkim will also be held simultaneously, the Election Commission said.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat discussed reasons behind the BJP dismal performance in Delhi.
Strident Hindutva has not been the Shivraj Singh Chouhan's hallmark in his long tenure as chief minister. What has changed?
Ignoring strong reservations by some senior party leaders and members of Legislative Assembly, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Wednesday announced his party's support to the ruling party's two candidates in the Rajya Sabha bye-election.
For the 2019 polls, the BJP chief deployed over 7,000 leaders to oversee the work of polling committees on the over 400 seats the BJP contested. These committees were asked to focus on 120 seats the party had lost in 2014, but believed it could win in 2019.
Delhi picked up the pace and a 67 per cent voter turnout was recorded till 6 pm.
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.
'When the BJP came into existence no party used to support it. When NDA was formed many leaders who are now holding posts in the present government were not holding any posts then and some of them were not even born,' the editorial said.
Ideology and principle are always put to work to camouflage political ambition. Nitish Kumar is a past master at this. His acceptance of the NDA in the first place was aimed at the top spot of Bihar. Then Delhi became the goal, but Narendra Modi's rise as head of the campaign rang alarm bells. So Nitish suddenly remembered secularism, says Jaya Jaitly.
Some within the BJP see Amit Shah's entry into the Rajya Sabha as the party's succession plan for 2025 when Narendra Modi turns 75.
'At this moment, the Trinamool has an edge.'
Amid efforts to form a Third Front, several regional parties including the Left, the Janata Dal-United, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Bharatiya Janata Dal and United Progressive Alliance ally Nationalist Congress Party on Wednesday came together at a convention in New Delhi with their leaders pitching for unity among them to defeat the "threat" from fascist and communal forces.
'The BJP will get the lion's share of the Opposition vote. I would give the Congress-Left around 15 per cent.'
'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.
'There is core BJP support on the Hindutva line. It will continue.' 'Along with that, the BJP is ready to play the OBCs trifurcation card to its benefit.' 'If you see the post-Kairana result, the BJP spokespersons and IT cell have already begun talking about Hindu unity against Muslim unity, Ram vs Allah.'
The image of him embracing Lalu Prasad Yadav having gone viral, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday sought to defend his anti-graft credentials saying it was the RJD chief who "pulled and hugged him", and it did not amount to an "alliance".
'The BJP should be really wary of Nitish Kumar, or he will also take the BJP down with him.'
Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat reached the poll-bound state besides Union ministers J P Nadda and Thawar Chand Gehlot, and Bihar minister Mangal Pandey, who are already camping here.
He questioned why only migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan will be given citizenship under the amended law and not the Sri Lankan Tamils.
Karunanidhi was convinced that using the 2G cases against the DMK and reopening the fodder case against Lalu Prasad Yadav were products of the Congress leadership's short-sightedness. A revealing excerpt from A S Panneerselvan's Karunanidhi: A Life.
'Modi is still immensely popular and, therefore, he can sustain any number of policy failures.' 'Modi himself has worn multiple faces so it would be naive to think that the Modi of 2021 will be the same Modi that will be campaigning for re-election in 2024.'
'In today's situation, it is not going to help anyone's case if they try to politically contest with the BJP on ideological issues.' 'Instead, it is best is to swim along the tide, present the more acceptable face of the cultural Hindu, but not be a political Hindu as the BJP or Mr Modi is.'
In the normal course, a high turnout reflects anti-incumbency but there is no correlation between high turnout and advantage to the National Democratic Alliance, says Dharmendra Kumar Singh.
While Azad, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, has been made in charge of Uttar Pradesh, Nath will look after Punjab and Haryana, party General Secretary Janaradan Dwivedi said.
"In May 2014, the BJP won 282 Lok Sabha seats. In four years, BJP government is down to 271, losing its simple majority in Lok Sabha minus its allies - considering the fact that PM Modi has suspended Kirti Azad and virtually disowned their most truthful, fiercely independent Patna Sahib MP," Surjewala tweeted.
Polling will be held in all 13 seats in Punjab and an equal number of seats in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight seats each in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, four in Himachal Pradesh, three in Jharkhand and the lone seat Chandigarh.
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