'We have taken technology to the mandal and booth level.'
If the Congress comes to power in the state, it will not allow his government to work, Modi claimed.
In India elections are never fought in a straight line. It's fought on many issues, at many levels, with multiple emotions and with a bit of good luck, too. Sheela Bhatt reports from Rajasthan.
According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
What is to be done to resist the twin thrusts of the BJP's ideology, majoritarian and a strong centripetal instinct against federalism? asks Aakar Patel.
Launching a veiled attack on Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad, who he did not mention by name, Modi said Bihar has come out of an era when rail, road and internet connectivity were made light of and people used to say of what use roads are for those who walk on their feet.
'The BJP has started a war-like situation against farmers and the Jat community.'
As Bihar decides its fate on Sunday, political leaders from across the spectrum weighed in.
While the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Janata Dal-United are busy fighting each other, the BJP is trying not to repeat the mistakes it made the last time out, says Satyavrat Mishra
'There is no scope for any doubt. This was a scheme designed to enrich the ruling party.'
Over 26 people have lost their lives country in the aftermath of the 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Nepal.
Empty bottles of liquor were discovered inside the premises of the legislature in dry Bihar, in a fresh embarrassment to the Nitish Kumar government in the state, which has been drawing flak over recent hooch tragedies that have claimed more than 40 lives.
'Had these three farm laws existed it would have become a huge election issue.'
Former Bihar chief minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav's wife Rabri Devi lost the elections from Raghopur and Sonepur assembly seats from which she contested.
Modi also berated the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress combine in Bihar, calling it an alliance of "double-double yuvraj" (two crown princes) whose sole concern was to protect their "respective thrones".
In Phase 6, indications are that the BJP, which is defending 40 seats, will lose in double digits and gain in single digits. Not good, if you are the ruling party scrambling to earn a working majority, with just one phase left to go, argues Prem Panicker.
'People may think that because my father was in the film world and politics, things are easy for me.' 'It is not easy at all.'
Ironically, rival Tamil Nadu governments expend the most on social welfare schemes, especially targeting women and youth and children, but that money comes only by selling more liquor. There is always the specious plea, which has been peddled very many times in the past, that without licensed liquor, drinkers would go after hooch and there could be more hooch tragedies and hooch deaths. No one is convinced, but no one can dispute it either, comments N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Bringing in Dr Mohan Yadav as the Yadav-OBC face from Ujjain as chief minister, and a scheduled tribe leader Jagdish Devda from Mandsaur district, and a Brahmin face Rajendra Shukla from Rewa, the BJP is making an attempt to put in place a new caste equation in the state keeping an eye on the general elections next year.'
From Chief Minister EK Palaniswami to Seeman to TTV Dhinakaran to elder brother M K Azhagiri, everyone's favourite target these days seems to the DMK chief Stalin, which is good news in an election year, but that doesn't mean he is going to sweep the polls, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
"All your queries would be answered at an appropriate time," he told journalists.
The veteran socialist leader, who ended his long alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party last year, was responding to queries from journalists about the 'Hindu Rashtra' clamour, which was openly endorsed earlier this week by his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath.
Narendra D Modi and his party campaigned in these elections uncharacteristically without any big ideas. Of course, winning each election at all costs could be a big idea as well, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'I somehow felt that Muzaffar Ali was in Aligarh to feel the pulse of the Muslim youth, especially in the darker and harsher times that India is passing through,' notes Mohammad Sajjad.
'As general elections draw near, the BJP and the JD-U (in whatever form it is) will do a deal -- the state to the JD-U in return for support at the Centre for the BJP.'
Talking about the brutal killing of Krishnaiah in 1994, G Uma Krishnaiah said her husband was killed for no fault of his.
More than predicting the nature of elections, a closer scrutiny of seat and vote share difference yields an important tool to assess the value of our democratic process, say economists Yugank Goyal and Arun Kumar Kaushik
'I will not say that the AIMIM is a 'B' team of the BJP. But due to the AIMIM, the BJP benefits for sure'
The Bihar unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party has invited party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi to contest from any Lok Sabha seat in Bihar, a senior leader said on Wednesday.
Why are far right Hindu organisations growing in strength? Why is there a rising subscription to Neo-Wahabism, the Saudi Arabian version of contemporary Islam?
Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav has termed Wednesday's landslide victory of the National Democratic Alliance in the Bihar assembly polls as mysterious and also said that his party will review their defeat.
Most politicians and even non-politicians have been honoured because of what they were purported to be electorally worth for the ruling party of their time, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Bharatiya Janata Party will hold a month-long campaign staring from June to mark the first anniversary of the Modi 2.0 government and will hold digital rallies in all districts across the country, its general secretary Bhupendra Yadav said.
The Congress will begin the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from the violence-hit Manipur on Sunday, in what is being seen as the party's bid to set the narrative in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls and put the spotlight on issues such as unemployment, price rise and social justice.
'You can attack and conspire to weaken us, but you cannot destroy the Congress permanently.'
In the Interim Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that a high power committee would be set up to consider the challenges arising from 'fast population grown and demographic changes.' 'But who wants data? It pays to feed people's fears, insecurities and apprehensions. If such fears don't exist, they must be created,' her husband Parakala Prabhakar says in this fascinating excerpt from his book, The Crooked Timber of New India: Essays on a Republic in Crisis.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday rejected claims by Bharatiya Janata Party MP and his former deputy chief minister Sushil Modi that the Janata Dal-United had split with the National Democratic Alliance as the chief minister was not made the Vice President.
BSP supremo Mayawati, AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee have been at the centre of intense debate in political circles on which way they will go after May 16, the day of election results.
'Over the last 65 years the state has seen majority of Maratha chief ministers and cabinet ministers, even Union cabinet ministers.' 'The Marathas have always wielded disproportionately significant political, commercial and social influence in the state and yet they are asking for reservations today.'
The "lackadaisical attitude" of Bihar Police in handling the security at Narendra Modi's Patna rally, which was hit by multiple blasts, has peeved the home ministry as, even three days after the explosions, live bombs were found at the venue.
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