'Outside the core voter base of upper caste Hindus, there is a large section unhappy with the performance of the BJP.'
A blood-soaked Nandigram made Mamata Banerjee what she is today and underpins the hopes of the combustible West Bengal leader of clinching a third straight term in office.
Success in Karnataka's assembly polls will hinge on two factors: Drop a large number of incumbent MLAs and project Modi and not the state leaders, least of all Bommai.
'In IIT, most faculty members have a bias against SC/ST students.' 'SC/ST and OBC students have no idea whom to approach for support.'
It may well be possible to defeat Modi. But nobody seems to know how, points out Vir Sanghvi.
The BJP objected to the name claiming that Tipu Sultan had persecuted Hindus and hence his name was unacceptable for a public facility.
"You are repeatedly talking about 70-30 ratio. What are you doing? If you are trying to practise divisive politics here, it will not work. I do Chandipath before stepping out of home every day," she said, before going on to recite the Sanskrit shlokas.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Karnataka minister for rural development and panchayat raj KS Eshwarappa on Wednesday claimed the Bhagwa dhwaj (saffron flag) may become the national flag some time in the future.
'The Muslims in Karnataka are safe and secure. The state government belongs to everybody.'
Bose's views make it amply clear how he would have dealt with communal and supremacist forces post-Independence had he been there at the helm instead of Nehru, points out Utkarsh Mishra.
P B Chandra finds out if the 'Modi wave' is sweeping the desert state as party workers have been claiming since the Bharatiya Janata Party's thumping victory in the assembly polls last year.
The MP from Thiruvananthapuram was taking a dig at the BJP president for holding the Congress responsible for India's partition on religious lines. Tharoor said, in fact, it was the Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League who were espousing the two-nation theory.
'The Maratha versus OBC friction will increase. A huge chunk of the Shiv Sena's social base consists of OBCs.' Dhaval Kulkarni reports.
'More than losing Bengal, the worry for their national leadership is the current crisis.' 'If people perceive that the government does not do enough, then there's trouble.'
The third-highest category of security in the country has been granted to Agnihotri because of the film-maker's increased threat perception after the The Kashmir Files release.
'The BJP may no longer be in power after 2024, that doesn't mean we'll stop this campaign against polygamy.'
While West Punjab became part of West Pakistan, East Punjab was given to India, and Bengal's division saw a large swathe of its eastern territory forming part of East Pakistan.
Under Election Commission guidelines, campaigning has to end 48 hours before the close of polls for each phase.
The inaugural Sangamam turned out to be a political Hindutva function than a gathering on the Hindu religion, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
A key United States Congressional panel has passed a legislative amendment that calls for investigations into racial and religious profiling of Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims and those from South Asia at various United States airports.
'The BJP is scared it may lose the Delhi municipal elections where they have been in power for the last 15 years.'
The biggest winner will be the BJP -- which has such a small presence that every incremental vote it gets can only increase its strength. But the man who will win despite losing everything will be Captain Amarinder Singh, predicts Aditi Phadnis.
Unsure about having the numbers in the Rajya Sabha, the Congress, the Trinamool Congress and other parties have decided they will create awareness about the "divisive" nature of the proposed legislation, reports Archis Mohan.
The Congress picked Charanjit Singh Channi as the next chief minister of Punjab, making him the first Dailt to hold the post in the state, a day after Amarinder Singh resigned following a bitter power tussle in the party.
It will be presented in the Lok Sabha next week in its original form.
'The BJP is the most progressive force within Hinduism today.'
The Assam assembly on Friday passed a bill to regulate the slaughter, consumption and transportation of cattle, notwithstanding the walkout staged by the opposition parties in protest against the government's refusal to forward the legislation to a select committee.
The bill known as the Karnataka Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Bill-2020 seeks a total ban on the slaughter of cows in the state and stringent punishment to those who indulge in smuggling, illegal transportation, atrocities on cows and slaughtering them, Bharatiya Janata Party sources said.
The boy from Kanpur kept his audiences in theatres, on television and lately on social media platforms engaged with vivid societal sketches, be it about travelling in Mumbai's famous locals or lampooning queues at wedding buffets.
Yogi Adityanath's aura is no longer limited to Uttar Pradesh. At the age of 49, his journey to the higher echelons in the BJP has well and truly begun, predicts Sudhir Bisht.
The Congress Lok Sabha member from the Kerala capital said the BJP and "Sanghi goondas" orchestrated the incident.
The Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh will be reduced to its 2012 tally of 47 or thereabouts as the wind is blowing in favour of the Akhilesh Yadav-led coalition this election, says Swami Prasad Maurya who left the saffron party to join the Samajwadi Party last month.
Neither Modi nor Shah had held legislative or executive power in Delhi before 2014. They have no training in appealing to the diversity of India as represented in Parliament. Their prism is the provincial politics of Gujarat. An exclusive excerpt from Vinay Sitapati's fascinating new book, Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi.
'Ram Sene or Bajrang Dal were supposed to be fringe elements, but with the BJP in power, they have become mainstream elements.' 'The government is either keeping quiet or indirectly supporting them.'
'Mamata is campaigning hard and not giving the BJP a walkover.'
The Assam cabinet had on December 13 approved a proposal to close down all Madrassas and Sanskrit Tols (schools) however, the legislation brought in the assembly during the day did not contain anything related to the Sanskrit tols and the education minister also did not mention anything about it.
'It's pretty likely that Kissinger, Rice et al came bearing gifts (read Trojan Horses) from McDonnell Douglas, Boeing, Grumman, Northrop, and all the other Military Industrial Complex stalwarts,' argues Rajeev Srinivasan.
Irrespective of their voting preferences, most voters would find this comparison with ISIS revolting. More specifically, would it persuade anybody who voted for Narendra Modi to change her or his mind? asks Shekhar Gupta.
As of now, there is nothing to suggest that the 'Michaelpatti episode' has the potential to polarise Dravidian Tamil Nadu on religious lines, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Till 5 pm, Agra recorded 56.61 per cent polling, Aligarh 57.25 per cent, Baghpat 61.35 per cent, Bulandshahr 60,52 per cent, Gautam Buddh Nagar 54.77 per cent, Ghaziabad 54.77 per cent, Hapur 60.50 per cent, Mathura 58.51 per cent, Meerut 58.52 cent, Muzaffarnagar 62.14 per cent and Shamli 61.78 per cent, an EC report said.
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