'Nawaz Sharif asked: "What if I invited him and he declined?"' 'I said I will check.' 'Vajpayee liked the idea. He said I should see him on my return.' Shekhar Gupta reveals how Sharif wanted to make peace, but was tripped by the army and notes the lessons it has for Imran Khan.
The Andhra Pradesh Raj Bhavan sex scandal and the paternity suit a love child filed against Tiwari dogged him in his 80s.
Nitish Kumar's decision to resign as the state chief minister was as dramatic as the time he decided to tie up with old foe Lalu in 2015.
'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.'
"If we (the Kashmiris) don't talk about it (dialogue), who will? Not a Bihari, not a Punjabi," she said.
The powerful orator leaves behind the legacy of an easily-accessible leader who played a key role in BJP's emergence in the late 1990s.
'This Ram Navami -- the birth anniversary of Lord Ram -- presents the majority community an opportunity to shed its minority complex and offer an olive branch and discrimination- free society to the minority,' suggests Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Rathore also credited PM for the Indian Army's operation in Myanmar and said that a nation emerges tough if its leader is strong-willed.
'After Vajpayee-Advani, Modi-Shah is the second best in India.'
Meanwhile, an independent MLA in Gujarat has declared his support to the BJP.
'No country or society ever prospered or remained secure by marginalising more than one-sixth of its own,' warns Shekhar Gupta.
Could the defeat of Vasundhara Raje, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and Raman Singh in last year's polls in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, respectively, augur a transition in the command structure of these states, where they reigned supreme?
'The government may backpedal for now to stave off bad international press and diplomatic demarches, but that it will go ahead with putting religion at the centre of citizenship rules is certain.' 'For it is convinced that this is the magic bullet that will ensure its return to power in 2024,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'Differences will almost certainly arise over how the minorities are to be viewed and how educational institutions are to be treated.'
'These issues would be non-negotiable for Mr Modi's BJP.' 'So he may well refuse to lead a government in which his freedom of action is constrained by others in the coalition,' feels T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar wants the Modi government and BJP to reap the profit of the surgical strikes. But electoral history suggests a political party's ability to exploit military successes for poll gains has a mixed record.
Sitting Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament Sushma Swaraj on Friday filed her nomination papers from Vidisha and expressed confidence about increasing her victory margin.
'The BJP is trying to bribe or unleash the income tax authorities (on us).'
'Indian secularism doesn't deserve a tombstone. It needs a new shrine,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
Why the prime minister's legacy will depend on how he governs, not the number of state elections he fights as personality contests, says Shekhar Gupta.
'If Rahul Gandhi's authority was absolute, he could have picked his man.' 'Compare this with the ease with which outsiders like Adityanath, Khattar and Fadnavis were picked.'
Court documents show that the Kerala government, whose case was treated as the 'lead case' among all the petitions filed against Adani, made four allegations to convince the court to cancel the contract for the Thiruvanathapuram airport. The state's legal team couldn't substantiate most of these allegations with documentary proof and its self-defeating arguments in court failed to convince the judges to cancel the contract given to Adani. The battle for the Thiruvananthapuram airport between the Communist-led Kerala government, the Adani group and the Modi government over the past year hasn't had a dull moment since the proceedings began. Claims of a smoking gun turned out to be a damp squib, says Sai Manish.
With four contenders for the top post in case the BJP wrests power from AAP, party sources say naming of a CM face may trigger factional fights.
Dubs Modi government a "one trick horse" which will make the Hindu-Muslim issue the dominant one in political discourse; asks Opposition to field one candidate in every seat against BJP nominee in 2019 polls.
A rebel by nature, he lived the life to the fullest, donning different hats -- lawyer, parliamentarian, minister -- but was not a quintessential politician constrained by party lines.
'China is concerned about its impact within Tibet.'
'A perception has been built in our country that whatever Modi says you cannot challenge that.'
Nath had said in Bhopal, "Lot of industries are set up in which people from other states, like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, come to work. I do not want to criticise them, but the youth of Madhya Pradesh are deprived (of jobs)."
'The heart of the matter is that India is not Israel.'
'Patriotism won 400+ seats for the Congress party in 1984. How much will nationalism bring in, in 2019, is the question,' asks Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'Some of his decisions were not so good, but his intentions were always guided by a deep national interest.'
Thackeray recalled former prime minister Vajpayee as saying, Ab Hindu maat nahi khayega (Hindus will not be defeated now), and added, "Hindus will not sit silent."
According to political analysts, Mayawati's social engineering to unite the lower castes with the upper ones seems to have backfired.
'I have done so many films but even today when I walk on the road, people call me Kaalia. I don't feel bad. I feel proud that people have seen me in Sholay and remember me.'
'I hope he will continue to be what he is. And doing so, he won't be much different from those whose example he is being given right now,' says Utkarsh Mishra.
The Shiv Sena on Monday refused to call off the protest against the book launch of former Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri in Mumbai.
'Modi wants to go down in history not necessarily as India's first overtly Hindu RSS pracharak prime minister, but as a world statesman who built the idea of India as a great nation.'
M Karunanidhi was a masterful practitioner of modern-day politics, wielding considerable influence beyond his own state, in the corridors of power in New Delhi, for a long time and sewing up alliances with both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Suresh Prabhu is trapped in the 'rhetoric of his own government'.
We should have anticipated it on August 5 last year, when we made the big changes in J&K. Amit Shah left nothing to chance when he told Parliament that 'we will bring back Aksai Chin even at the cost of our lives'. 'Then, there were the new maps, objections to the CPEC going through Indian territory, the weather reports.' A broad territorial status quo had existed in Ladakh-Aksai Chin since 1962. India made its intention to change this public, notes Shekhar Gupta.
The desecration of Vidyasagar's statue during Amit Anilchandra Shah's rally, which the TMC projected to be a 'Bhojpuri' and 'Dhokla' invasion on West Bengal's culture, may help her gain some favour with middle-class and erudite Bengalis in the last phase of the polls.
