'Mamata is synonymous with Bengal, its culture, language, traditions.'
The BJP urged the EC to take 'suo motu cognisance' and take suitable action.
The founder of the newly floated Raijor Dal -- arrested in December 2019 over sedition charges - bagged 57,219 votes as an Independent, garnering support from 46.06 per cent of the electorate.
'If there is one thing our politicians, especially those with their ear to the ground, understand, it is the reality that their voters want three things from their children's schooling: English, English, English', notes Shekhar Gupta.
As many as 74,44,260 voters would exercise their franchise using ballot papers to elect their representatives in the 150-ward Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, according to official data.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has boosted the representation of backward castes, dalits, tribals and women in his Council of Ministers in a big shake-up of his government with a focus on politically crucial states, including the all-important Uttar Pradesh.
'The general idea is to unite all the anti-Modi parties into an alliance, to dent the PM's image as a vote-winner, and then stymie him in Parliament -- particularly in the Rajya Sabha -- in order to ruin his credentials as a reformer,' says T V R Shenoy.
Paswan was a minister under six different prime ministers, hardly out of government since he was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1977, observes Virendra Kapoor.
The new Council of Ministers has representation from almost all the states, except Andhra Pradesh and the north-eastern states of Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura.
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 unsound analysis of the said article is based on the extrapolation of data without any epidemiological evidence," the ministry said, adding the studies used by the magazine to estimate the mortality are not validated tools for determining the death rate of any country or region.
'I will not say that the AIMIM is a 'B' team of the BJP. But due to the AIMIM, the BJP benefits for sure'
Bihar's former deputy chief minister and senior party leader Sushil Kumar Modi explains the party's poll strategy.
Urging the people to make sure that their names are in the voters' list, Banerjee accused "local leaders" of the BJP of spreading canards about the possibility of implementing the NRC in the state.
The senior leader said there an all-round support for Sonia and Rahul Gandhi is "apparent to anyone who is not blind".
India will either have to create a system in which certain geographical areas will wind up being permanent political outsiders at the Union level or it will have to create a system in which certain votes are weighted more heavily than others, observes Mihir S Sharma.
It is wrong to say the Congress doesn't matter. Certainly one set of people who do not believe that for a minute is the BJP. That's why even in his speech in Parliament on Constitution Day, Mr Modi called dynastic politics a threat to democracy, observes Shekhar Gupta.
As the exit polls were sharply split on who would get to rule Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav on Saturday said their grand Mahagatbadhan alliance would win the Bihar Assembly polls with 190 seats.
The TMC, which is yet to fully recover from the 2019 Lok Sabha poll setback, when the BJP's tally soared from two to 18, is apprehensive that the AIMIM may act as "spoiler" in several assembly segments.
If the BJP wins Bengal, would Kishor's indiscretions have played a significant role in that victory? Victory for the TMC would be another badge of honour in his CV, but defeat would raise an unsavoury question: Which party was Kishor actually working for? asks Payal Singh Mohanka.
'They have been imposing Hindi on Tamil Nadu,' says DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadurai.
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.
In a post on Twitter on Wednesday, the 28-year-old also named the Janata Dal-United as a client during the 2010 Bihar elections and brought up some caste surveys carried out in Uttar Pradesh by SCL India -- the parent company of CA.
Describing Chirag as wise and mature politician, Paswan said the party needed a young face, one who can travel and work for its expansion.
Polling for three parliamentary seats and 29 assembly constituencies were held on October 30, an exercise being seen as a barometer of the political mood in the country ahead of assembly elections in politically critical Uttar Pradesh as well as other states.
The counting will begin at 8 am, and as per the Election Commission's COVID-19 guidelines, a candidate, his poll agent and counting agent can remain present in the counting hall, officials said, adding various measures have been taken to ensure social distancing and avoid crowding.
By-elections to Nalanda and Bhagalpur were necessitated due to resignations of Nitish Kumar and Sushil Kumar Modi after becoming chief minister and deputy chief minister respectively.
Hindu festivals are now becoming occasions when anti-Muslim hatred is expressed freely through slogans and songs that are full of abuse against Muslims or calls to either kill them or humiliate them, observes Apoorvanand.
Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM, which is going to contest next year's Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls on the promise of creating leadership among Muslims, has created unease in the political parties that so far considered the members of the minority community as their core "vote bank".
'Nitish Kumar wouldn't have won Bihar without Lalu. He needed a voter base and Lalu has a much bigger voter base than Nitish.'
Here are 8 factors to watch out for, says psephologist Yogendra Yadav.
The CPI says its candidate Kanhaiya Kumar is getting 'excellent' support from all segments of society in Begusarai.
'The poor manner in which the RJD stitched its alliance and mismanaged its electioneering, now reveals that Tejashwi was more interested in enhancing his political stature by cutting down many senior leaders, by downsizing and shrinking RJD allies, by displaying arrogance and inaccessibility and by committing silly mistakes in candidate selection,' points out Mohammad Sajjad.
CM Yogi Adityanath said the BJP was getting widespread support from the people.
'The second Covid wave spread due to the irresponsibility of the Election Commission of India and now they are committing the same mistake.'
Governments in most of the world saw their approval ratings dip as they struggled to contain the raging virus, which hit economy hard everywhere, but Indian politics followed a different script, with the outgoing year marking further shrinking of a rudderless Congress while the ruling BJP soared riding on Modi's enduring appeal.
Stalin, like his father M Karunanidhi did in 2004, may play the king-maker in a way -- not the king, unless the 2024 post-poll circumstances throws up a situation where he alone becomes acceptable to the rest, observes 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.
'People want to see Mr Sinha win again because he has always been there for Patna whether he has been a leader or not.' 'Even when he was an actor, he was a proud Bihari.' 'He is not doing it because he only wants to win an election, he wants to do it because he really loves Bihar.'
Minority conference organised by the JD-U turned out to be a poor show with few from the Muslim community attending it, exposing the falling credibility of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as a secular leader, says M I Khan.
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