In the BJP veteran's home district, some feel he has been harmed by his party, while some think he never gave back to the place he belonged to, and then there are some who believe son Manvendra Singh will have a tough time living up to his name.
'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.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah will soon get around to reworking their organisational set-up and administrative priorities to regain lost ground in the wake of the Delhi electoral debacle, but there's third course available to them as well. That is to introduce the presidential form of government, which prime ministers Indira Gandhi and A B Vajpayee flirted with before abandoning it. Will Modi go further than them? N Sathiya Moorthy analyses the scenario.
'What is at stake is not one mosque or temple, it is the question of the principle of secularism which is part of the basic structure of the Constitution as declared even by the Supreme Court of India.'
The former cricketer reiterated his love for his state, saying he would choose it over any party or family.
Political skirmishes erupt over Chhattisgarh's decision to permit babus to attend RSS camps.
'You come out of the theatre feeling happy, inspired, with moist eyes and in awe.'
Tejaswi Yadav spoke with Rediff.com about how he plans to wash clean the 'jungle raj' tag that has stuck with his father and former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav.
'To them, the day may not be far off when the state BJP starts claiming and propagating that Modi is next only to AIADMK's late boss Jayalalithaa,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Even if we expect that the economy will be hit and GDP is lowered for a few quarters by the reckless demonetisation, this will itself not be sufficient to dislodge Modi's popularity,' says Aakar Patel.
The classic Third Year or Mid-Term Problem has afflicted all but two prime ministers who have lasted a full term, give or take a few months this way or that, points out T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
As the MAMI film festival kicks off, Aseem Chhabra picks the must watch Indian movies.
The Odiya strongman, who delivered stunning victory to the BJP as the in-charge of Bihar unit, straight away got down to work after taking charge of the high-profile ministry.
'If Mr Modi and Mr Shah have made a poisonous, polarising campaign their brahmastra for 2019, Mamata Banerjee is showing them its limitations,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Karpoori Thakur must be remembered by people today who are tired of witnessing fractious politics where corruption, bigotry, hatred and violence seems to have become distressingly recurrent,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Speaking for the first time after the government announced an halt to anti-militancy operations in the state during the holy month of Ramzan, the prime minister said there is no alternative to peace and stability.
"Why did Congress oppose creation of Uttarakhand as a state? Those who cannot think well of the people here, how can they govern?" Prime Minister Modi said while addressing an election rally.
'The BJP was looking at one or two disgruntled guys to see whether it can destabilise the government.' 'When the BJP does not win a state, it uses these back hand methods.'
'Jaitley was one of the earliest politicians to sense the changing political scenario in Delhi. He had closely watched the rise of the BJP and declining fortunes of the Congress party during the L K Advani era. But it was between 2009 and 2014 as the Leader of the Opposition that he began to read the tea leaves. 'And thus it was that he introduced Modi-Amit Shah duo to Lutyens Delhi,' says senior journalist R Rajagopalan who had known Jaitley since 1975.
A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party's big defeat in Bihar, disgruntled party MP Shatrughan Sinha on Monday said those responsible for the debacle should be taken to task and responsibility fixed for the loss.
If Sinha's criticism gives credence to the view within the party that its members are afraid to speak up, it can do long-term damage.
'He totally gets the Gandhis...' 'If anything, he pays too much attention to the Gandhis.' 'I feel that in places like UP, where the Congress doesn't matter, he often spends time blasting the Gandhis.'
Sinha, a former finance minister, hogged the limelight and started trending high on social media on Wednesday morning, after he criticised his own government for sinking the economy, in an article he penned for The Indian Express.
'If they were really serious (about conferring the Bharat Ratna on Savarkar) what were they doing for the last five years?' 'Why do they have to take so long?' 'Gandhi himself never got the Bharat Ratna so it does not really matter.'
'Politics is not a post for retired people to enjoy.'
After five decades of existence, the Shiv Sena's support base seems to be shifting towards the rural electorate but there it has to contend with the network of Sharad Pawar and the BJP.
'Facing foes with a common intent is not something Modi-Shah's BJP has done before,' points out Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
BJP president Amit Shah had said during the campaign that the party was fighting the election under Rupani and Nitin Patel.
Amid a slew of meetings with Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Sunday said it would not interfere in the functioning of the BJP-led government at the Centre, dismissing suggestions that it was running the party through 'remote control'.
Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government over the Central Bureau of Investigation's decision to question her on the multi-crore National Rural Health Mission scam, claiming she had no connection with it and that the Centre was misusing the agency ahead of Bihar elections for political gains.
'In being dismissive of Naveen, his colleagues showed incredible naivety.' 'On the few occasions that he put his foot down, the overconfident party leaders, who believed they were using him and not the other way around, failed to read the signs of what was to come.'
Half-way through the polls, the fight has become more personal.
'The simple truth is this: That we had come to assume that a second term was Modi's for the asking. But the fact is that Modi will have to win one, just like everybody else.' 'And so much has he invested in his strongman persona that even a loss of just 50 seats from his extraordinary 282 in 2014 will look to his potential allies and to his party like a defeat,' says Mihir S Sharma.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is eyeing a fourth straight term in the tribal-dominated state as the opposition Congress seeks to return to power after 15 years.
Former president A P J Abdul Kalam was admitted to a hospital in Shillong following a sudden illness on Monday.
'Bangladeshi Muslims want to increase their population in India.' 'They have made colonies in India.' 'Rohingyas are doing the same.' 'This has to stop.'
'Did the government learn any lesson from the disasters of 2008, 1987, 1975?' 'Certainly not!' 'They are making people believe that the 2017 flood was unexpected, so no preventive effort towards reducing the loss of human lives was to be expected from the government,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
'And Indians are loving it,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Once the violence is contained, the politicians must play their role, but unfortunately that is not happening.'
'Narendra Modi is one person who came up fighting many injustices. So, he is a fighter all the time, and that makes all the difference.'
