The focus shifts almost immediately from celebrations to the challenges faced by the man who powered his party to 303 seats in the Lok Sabha.
An interplay of Modi government's outreach in Bihar and the sequence of events in Chirag Paswan's life could make Bihar a game of musical chairs when the results are out.
Amid speculation that Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose may be named for the Bharat Ratna, a Congress leader on Sunday said Bahujan Samaj Party founder Kanshi Ram and Aligarh Muslim University founder Sir Syed Ahmed Khan should also be given the country's highest civilian award.
Only on Wednesday, in his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Modi said he wants to resolve the Kashmir issue through Vajpayee's doctrine of "Insaniyat, Kashmiriyat, Jamhooriyat" - a testimony to the former PM's lasting legacy.
'Vajpayee was the first prime minister to visit the battlefield at the height of conflict,' recalls Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Jaitley, 66, has become 'very weak' as his health has deteriorated over the past few weeks, sources said, adding that he has developed some throat condition as well that prevents him from speaking for long.
'In India foreign policy is generally handled by the prime minister.' 'One can clearly see the Vajpayee stamp on all this.' 'Only a person with poetic imagination can weave such a complex web,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
'The BJP's constitution promises allegiance to India's secularism and socialism.' 'This is the oath that it makes all its members sign,' observes Aakar Patel.
'The BJP has the torch and with that same torch, the BJP is trying to light up its house in Bihar.' 'The BJP is trying to burn Nitish Kumar's house with that torch.'
'If Modi had followed Vajpayee in Kashmir, then there would have been absolutely no problem in Kashmir.'
'His record will be clouded by the same negative factors as of Rajiv Gandhi and Narasimha Rao, namely, their politics and therefore social policies,' says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
If Narendra Modi wants to become prime minister, he needs to do better, argues Amberish K Diwanji.
'By resorting to divisive issues, the BJP is giving the impression that even if it is voted to power it won't do anything new to give Bihar a facelift. It will repel voters with the belief that the BJP can't do anything without communal polarisation as its core ideology. This is sad and unfortunate,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Challenging the verdict is a deterrent to future peace and harmony and a socially irresponsible act, argues Vivek Gumaste.
'The reason why Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have attended the President's iftar was not merely to break a fast with the faithful, but more importantly to broker an understanding with India's second largest set of citizens,' says Shehzad Poonawalla.
'He was No 2 to Laloo Prasad in the last government and he will be No 2 in the new one as well, not to Sushil Modi, but to the other Modi in Delhi.' 'In the process, Nitish Kumar will have to forget any role which he may have secretly entertained about playing a larger role on the national stage,' says Amulya Ganguli.
The danger to India's democracy is coming from recourse to mobocracy encouraged by the anti-Modi gang, argues Vivek Gumaste.
Will Malik's worldview, shaped by his years with the socialists, Charan Singh, the Congress and V P Singh, help him govern the troubled state? Or would his rule have the imprint of the party he joined in the latter years of his chequered political career?
How he hopes to retain his fort is anyone's guess, says Nazarwala, the man who called right the 2007 and 2012 UP elections.
The dates selected by the organizers, particularly for Kanpur and Lucknow, could once again ignite communal trouble.
In the four-paragraph letter, Jaitley said he had orally informed Modi about his desire not to be a part of the new BJP government to enable him to concentrate on treatment and health.
Few had imagined the BJP would be able to travel this far when it was founded on April 6, 1980.
The filmmaker, to put it bluntly, has absolutely nothing going for him to justify his nomination as a BJP candidate from Hyderabad, feels Vicky Nanjappa
'A fierce crusader against communalism, George joined hands with majoritarian forces, never to revisit or re-assess his saffron association.' 'He was a Union minister in 1998-2004, a time when people like Graham Staines were lynched in Orissa.' 'On the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, George went on to kind of justify the slashing of pregnant women, by saying in the Lok Sabha that this was nothing new for India.' 'Thus, he was in sharp contrast to what he had himself stood for in the heyday of his political career in the 1970s and 1980s, says Mohammad Sajjad.
Bharatiya Janata Party prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi sharpened his attack on Nitish Kumar, saying the Janata Dal-United leader's "arrogance" and "ambition" to become prime minister drove him to split from BJP, and compared the socio-economic conditions of Muslims in Gujarat and Bihar to claim he practised "true" secularism.
'What I want is not for the elected to tell me what they did in the 1990s or for the past 5 years,' says A Bihari Abroad. 'I would rather know what they plan to do in the next 6 months and give the people a report on the progress of these initiatives. Perhaps, a presentation on their performance and their future plans, to the electoral public, who they represent and are actually answerable to.'
The entire campaign in Lucknow is based on Narendra Modi -- there is little mention of the BJP candidate, a certain Rajnath Singh. Some locals wonder, 'Rajnathji is not coming to campaign in Lucknow. How will he take care of this city after he wins?' Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com reports from Lucknow.
'The 2019 election could well become a referendum on Narendra Damodardas Modi, in which case the BJP could prove all its critics wrong,' notes T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
You'd wonder what madness seized Rahul that he has decided to play to the BJP's strengths, says Shekhar Gupta.
He said he spoke whatever he felt from within and added 'neither I dream it, nor there is any liaisoning, nor any PR'.
Ravi Shankar Prasad in Patna Sahib, Ram Kripal Yadav in Pataliputra, R K Singh in Arrah and Ashwani Choubey in Buxar are all having a tough time.
Nowhere else has caste, power politics, and generational change come together to form a combination so potent that it is combustible.
In any institution that has a passionate ideology, the moderate is always vulnerable to the person who is more extreme, because that is what the supporters want.
Pakistan played a 'key role' in fomenting the recent trouble in Kashmir, Home Minister Rajnath Singh has said.
Leading historian Irfan Habib said the country's academic community is shocked at the manner in which the Modi government is "trampling upon" academic institutions.
'Since the goal of taking everyone along on the path of development -- sabka saath sabka vikas -- requires an atmosphere of amity, there cannot but be an emphasis on the primacy of law and order -- and it cannot be only against road-side Romeos or gutka chewers,' says Amulya Ganguli.
India can be called "more Islamic than Pakistan" as more Muslims live here than that country, Home Minister Rajnath Singh told the chief of Pakistan Rangers who called on him to discuss ways to keep the border peaceful.
A consensus builder, Jaitley was regarded by some as Modi's original 'Chanakya'.
Facing accusations of pursuing communal agenda against the backdrop of conversion in Agra, government has asserted in Lok Sabha that it was committed to maintain communal harmony and suggested that all states as well as the Centre should have anti-conversion laws.
He said there is a fundamental distinction between religious practices, rituals and civil rights.
