A victory in Nandigram would not only establish him as one of the tallest BJP leaders in Bengal but would push him miles ahead of others in the chief ministerial race if the party is voted to power.
Sources said the new heads of the party in Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh will be announced soon.
Trinamool Congress leadership is yet to take a call on ghar wapsi (return home) by former TMC leaders who had joined the BJP ahead of the recently concluded assembly elections which the Mamata Banerjee-led party swept.
'Partition was a two-sided story in a very big way.' 'We've oversimplified it, blamed the British, thought of ourselves only as victims.' 'We've been both victims and perpetrators.'
Many factors like women, caste combination, education qualification, age and performance of the legislators will be taken into consideration before the formation of the Yogi government 2.0, sources said on Thursday. Several rounds of meetings have taken place within the party after the poll results came out on March 10.
Why is China's supreme leader promoting Han Chauvinism so aggressively, asks Claude Arpi.
Much depends on the BJP's electoral performance in next year's assembly elections. If the party fares well in UP and some states like Goa and Gujarat, it will be able to fob off the attempt at a reappraisal of its Hindutva doctrine, observes Amulya Ganguli.
On Friday, during his interaction with the media, the prime minister is expected to present his aggressive and confident face. Sheela Bhatt reports
As the Congress and United Progressive Alliance government appear to be veering towards formation of a separate Telangana state, ministers and MPs from Andhra and Rayalaseema regions met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday opposing any division of Andhra Pradesh.
Most political leaders in Punjab have come out in the open to oppose him, unlike the early 1980s when political leaders were scared of speaking against Bhindranwale, observes Sudhir Bisht.
US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, newly elected co-chair of the influential Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, discusses her vision for US-India ties with Rediff.com's Monali Sarkar.
'The title of 'core' of the leadership gives Xi Jinping greater political authority at a time when China is beset by various problems as well as a slowdown in economic growth,' points out former RA&W officer Jayadeva Ranade.
China on Monday continued its unprecedented military drills around Taiwan, extending the schedule of war games launched in retaliation to the visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the breakaway island which Beijing claims is part of its territory.
The parties agreed to the demand of tribal bodies and civil society groups to resolve the Naga political problem first.
The Rajiv Gandhi assassination, investigation and trial were all jinxed in parts, recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
Rather than lose direction with the Karnal protest, farmers decided to focus more on UP to defeat the BJP in the forthcoming assembly elections there, reports Nitin Kumar.
While Congressmen may try and give Rahul Gandhi credit for the withdrawal of the controversial ordinance on convicted lawmakers, it was the President's timely intervention that saved the day for the Congress, says Anita Katyal.
The outcome in UP is far more significant than in the other states going to the polls next year. An unlikely setback in UP can cramp the Modi government, virtually making it a lame-duck two years ahead of the 2024 parliamentary poll, observes Virendra Kapoor.
Aaditya claimed that Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari refused to grant more time to the Sena to muster numbers.
'Whether she will remain CPP chairperson or not, that she will decide.'
'Anyone can come and anyone can go.' 'There is no ideology or vision that differentiates one party from another.'
To beat BJP, you either deny them a critical mass of Hindu vote or build a regional leader and party strong enough to protect their turf, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'Chief Minister Rio is holding the Naga Peace Accord hostage with his tacit support to the NSCN-IM, egging them to refuse to accept a solution within the Constitution.'
In her message on the occasion of the 73rd Independence Day, she appealed to all to reinvigorate the principles of compassion, coexistence and inclusive development as the indelible features of polity, society and economy.
Shah held a meeting with office-bearers, state chiefs and key organisational leaders to finalise agenda items, including resolutions, which the national executive is expected to discuss on September 25, the birth anniversary of Hindutva icon Deen Dayal Upadhyaya.
'Economic issues do not matter during elections; it is the emotional connect that helps swing votes.'
'Temperamentally, they are quite alike.' 'Ahmed Patel avoided the limelight and was not a power seeker.' 'The Gandhis too are not power wielders, but trustees of power.'
'Goa is a tiny state, but in terms of its Business of Politics, several powerful lobbies of India are involved in it, be it the mining lobby, hoteliers' lobby, casino lobby, hawala lobby, drugs lobby etc.'
'When Uddhav Thackeray went in for surgery, he had presumed that Eknath Shinde would have looked after the Shiv Sena for him during this period.' 'He did not imagine that Shinde would use this period to backstab him.'
'Hindutva doesn't teach you to stab someone in the back.'
"We reaffirm that Jammu & Kashmir is an integral part of India and is a matter strictly internal to India," spokesperson in the Ministry of External Affairs Raveesh Kumar said.
One Chinese source informed ANI that 10 million new infections are probably occurring daily in China.
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.
'I don't think there is a wave in favour of the Samajwadi Party, or against the BJP.' 'This election is largely about which party is able to build a larger social and political coalition.'
Elections for 19 Rajya Sabha seats spread across eight states will be held on Friday with the contest in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan promising to be a close affair between the BJP and the Congress.
Though the BJP is running too close for comfort, populist schemes and support among Muslims may help Mamata Banerjee overcome the challenge, observes Aditi Phadnis.
For the first time, Akhilesh is leading the SP almost single-handed into a major election, but he is not the only one running the show Shikha Shalini reports.
BMS allies with breakaway faction of Congress-affiliated INTUC. This marks a new chapter in India's trade union movement
BJP president Amit Shah had said during the campaign that the party was fighting the election under Rupani and Nitin Patel.
