Gujarat was labelled Hindutva's crucible and Modi was to become the chief 'chemist'. A revealing political saga excerpted from Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay's The Demolition, the Verdict and the Temple: The Definitive Book on the Ram Mandir Project.
Singh, in his address to the Indian-American community in San Francisco, also sent a subtle message to the United States that New Delhi does not believe in a diplomacy of 'zero-sum game' and its relationship with one country cannot be at the expense of the other.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has pinned its hopes on the old guard to ensure victory in next month's assembly elections in Chhattisgarh as it gave tickets to 11 sitting MLAs and renominated 13 leaders who lost in the 2018 polls.
Deriving from Narendra Modi's continuing charisma, the proposed scheme, if and when implemented, can cut both ways. That is to say, if Modi can win, he can lose. Or, someone else in his place, later on, could lose as much as he could win in his time, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Till today, we don't know how many people died of Covid in India.' 'How many migrated from cities to villages during the Covid pandemic?' 'How many corporates contributed to PM Cares?'
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.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party won the mayoral elections in 10 of the 17 municipal corporations in Uttar Pradesh, results for which were announced on Saturday, virtually adding a third engine to its "double-engine" government.
Modi believes that the Congress leadership does not have the political sagacity to undertake a course correction because of its preoccupation about not losing its current gains in the voter base, observes Shekhar Iyer.
In the last 9 years, the BJP govt has marked some anniversaries and events with more zeal than Congress-led governments.
Two aborted missions, three different ministers, multiple rule changes and two decades later, Indian taxpayers will no longer have to pay Rs 20 crore per day to keep the loss-making Air India flying. While opposition Congress expectedly attacked the decision as selling the family silver, DIPAM secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said what Tata is getting is not a cash cow but an airline which is bleeding where money needs to be pumped in to refurbish obsolete aircraft and dust up strangled ones while being unable to touch any employee for one year and only be able to resize staff after paying a VRS. "It won't be a very easy task there. Only advantage is they (new Air India owner) are paying the price which they think they can manage. "They are not taking the excessive debt accumulated to fund years of losses. We are continuing it as an ongoing concern.... This process has also saved huge amount of taxpayers money going forward," Pandey told PTI.
Out of the 26 seats where Modi addressed election rallies, the BJP won only 10.
Former chief minister Jai Ram Thakur, who was on Sunday elected the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party legislative party in Himachal Pradesh, hit out at the Congress, alleging its government was failing to deliver on poll promises and leaders were moving in different directions.
Indications are that the DMK combine will win more seats than the AIADMK and BJP, but is facing a tough fight in about half a dozen from the rest, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy of the electoral contest in Tamil Nadu.
Vasundhara Raje may have had her faults but she is an unconventional and brave leader who deserves better, observes Aditi Phadnis.
'It is not just about numbers. Sometimes coalitions and alliances have symbolic value.'
Both teams will be looking to get out of the danger zone as eight teams remain in the play-off contention.
Potbelly moves away from the run-of-the-mill mughlai cuisine. Try it and you won't be disappointed.
'New Delhi is in a perpetual dilemma. It can't do without Yediyurappa, but it doesn't want a powerful CM. It stokes the opponents within against him. The result is he has never settled down in office, even in the present tenure'
'Log kehte hai desh to humne Modi ko diya hua hai, par pradesh nahi diya hai (we have given Modi the mandate to run the nation, not the state).'
The PM is seen as slipping up in confidence levels as aired by his 'exposure' of the BRS on a crucial issue as alliance negotiations, which is not done under normal circumstances, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'They take each and every election with seriousness.' 'No other political party has that kind of cadre who is strongly aligned with the reason, motto and ideology of their party.'
'This victory is a tight slap on the face of those who were eager to write me off.'
'There was trust, but perhaps there was also this apprehension that given the supreme post of prime minister, Sonia Gandhi felt her authority may be a challenged.'
Arvind Kejriwal warned the media that "very big forces" would try and break the INDIA alliance by showing that there was a lot of acrimony among them.
A rotating chief ministership as a way to appease factions can work only if there is a credible guarantor, explains Aditi Phadnis.
The transmogrification of Prime Minister Modi to Saint Modi began with the ground-breaking ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. By identifying himself with Lord Ram, Modi raised himself in popular imagination to a saintly person.
Kumar had also made it clear that he was in the process of uniting the non-BJP leaders.
Lyricist-writer Javed Akhtar on Friday said his comments on the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks during his recent visit to Pakistan have become "too big" but he had to set the record straight on certain things while he was there.
Kumar made the remark while replying to questions in Patna, from journalists, about the BJP's decision taken at its two-day state executive meeting that concluded in Darbhanga on the previous day.
BJP veterans whom K Annamalai has reportedly sidelined are upset over his 'immature' way of handling allies, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
There is no sign of it losing popularity with a significant section of the voting population, which appears to be attracted to the party for identity reasons, observes Aakar Patel.
'BJP loses a democratic election, then buys MLAs from the ruling party's flock and rides to power in these states.' 'Do you think Atalji would have tolerated this?'
Parties like the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, Mahaan Dal, and Janvadi Party-Socialist had distanced themselves from the SP after its defeat in the 2022 state assembly elections.
'My role will be to take her message across the country.'
Uttar Pradesh deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya on Friday after taking the oath of the office said that Bharatiya Janata Party is targeting to win more than 75 seats out 80 from Uttar Pradesh in 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Dominic Xavier wonders whether Bihari women will remember what Nitish Kumar has done for them or whether electorate amnesia will set in.
It's time Rahul Gandhi became attuned to the reality of the 21st century instead of recycling failed political jargon of the 20th century,' argues Virendra Kapoor.
You'd wonder what madness seized Rahul that he has decided to play to the BJP's strengths, says Shekhar Gupta.
The JD-U, may be the BJP's partner for now. But it is a party at all only because of Nitish Kumar. The day Nitish Kumar exits, the JD-U will split into hundreds of pieces. Obviously, Prashant Kishor is setting himself up as the vessel that will collect all the pieces and put them together in some sort of political instrument, explains Aditi Phadnis.
