'The Hindu electorate is more or less in the BJP defined space now.'
'With the abrogation of Article 370, the Constitutional integration of Kashmir is complete, but whether there has been emotional integration of the Kashmir Valley is a question mark.'
'The BJP will get the lion's share of the Opposition vote. I would give the Congress-Left around 15 per cent.'
Every February 28th, Zakia Jafri relives the agony of witnessing the brutal massacre of her husband, former Congress MP Ahsan Jafri, along with scores of other women and children. Despite deteriorating health, her hope that those responsible will be brought to justice, remains strong, notes Najid Hussain.
Thackeray also said he won't block NPR but will not allow NRC in Maharashtra. He assured that he will 'personally check the columns' in the NPR, adding there shouldn't be any problem with the exercise in Maharashtra.
'The political fallout of the verdict on national politics is pregnant with incredible opportunities.' 'Post-judgment politics can change the ground rules of election campaigning in the coming decades,' says Sheela Bhatt
'This is what Hindu Rashtra looks like, which has been enabled by conditions of democracy.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party, for whom the temple town sharpened its Hindutva plank, is facing a challenge particularly from the Samajwadi Party in the ongoing state polls.
The manner in which a large proportion of common people have mortgaged their rationality and questioning spirit to let hatred, prejudice, and bigotry take over their minds is a cause of worry, observes Mohammad Sajjad.
'The burden of the BJP's song is not development and delivery.' 'It is communalism,' argues Aakar Patel.
'The BJP is taking a risk in Assam, but it may face a tough time in coming times,' says Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty.
'Both the CPM and the BJP have one agenda, and that is to keep the Congress out.' 'That's why they are coming together.'
If pandemic (mis)management threatened to dominate Goa's electoral discourse, the BJP is up against a deeper structural issue in its organisation, created by the fact that a majority of the legislature party and the ministerial council is made up of Congress defectors, disparagingly referred to by the Opposition as "imports". Radhika Ramaseshan reports.
'They thought he can separate the Muslim votes and win, but the Kerala mind is completely different.' 'It is a secular mind because Hindus, Christians and Muslims live together.' 'We don't like somebody coming from outside, contesting in our state, winning and going and avoiding us.'
"They (those who celebrated the win) don't have anything to do with them (Pakistanis)... It was done to provoke the BJP. They were children and young boys and this should serve as an eye-opener for the BJP," Abdullah said at a public meeting in Surankote in Poonch district.
The meetings with the chief ministers will be held on Saturday, an official said.
'Kerala will witness a lot of fireworks in Wayanad and a kind of fight that it has not witnessed so far.'
'Yes, we are angry, we are frustrated, but not all our anger is directed towards Delhi.'
'Indian nationhood is indeed at the cusp of alarming redefinition -- hate-filled, and exclusionary.' 'Nations are not built this way, instead these are the ways of liquidating nations.' 'We must pre-empt it.' 'Can we?' asks Mohammad Sajjad.
'We are losing the battle of secularism, but we have not lost.'
Successive elections have demonstrated that the BJP campaign switches towards polarisation when it is faced with palpable discontent among the electorate, notes Utkarsh Mishra.
The SC issued notice to the Centre on the batch of pleas seeking stay on the operation of the law.
However, as the region with the state's highest concentration of Muslims readies for polls on November 7 in the last phase of the elections, it is the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress-Left alliance that draws considerable support from the community amid sporadic voices in Owaisi's support as they weigh their choices.
For the past, blame the Congress. For the present, blame the Congress. For everything, blame the Congress. But for your future, vote BJP.
Replying to a debate on Motion of Thanks to the President's Address, he said the first prime minister of India (Jawaharlal Nehru) wrote to the first chief minister of Assam (Gopinath Bordoloi), saying there was a need to differentiate between Hindu refugees and Muslim migrants.
The publishing of the NRC will not rid India from illegal immigrants who are already here. But even if it manages to withhold their political and voting rights, it will be a significant achievement, says Anand Kumar.
If Modi's political retreat -- he has tried to avoid a pre-1984 type of situation in Punjab -- helps soothe Sikh sentiments, nobody should complain Modi, asserts Sheela Bhatt.
'The way opposition parties such as the Nationalist Congress Party, Shiv Sena, the Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Jharkhand Mukti Morch have supported her, if she wins, she will be the biggest opposition face for 2024'
'As demonetisation showed us, the Shah-Modi duo can take big risks.' 'Risking economic damage for political benefit, however, is one thing, stoking old fires in complicated Assam is another', warns Shekhar Gupta.
The agency has named 247 people as accused in the case, according to NIA sources.
Ajay Pandita, sarpanch of the Larkipora area in Anantnag district and a member of the Congress party, was shot at by terrorists in his native village at around 6 pm, a police official said. He said Pandita was rushed to a hospital where he succumbed to injuries.
Reiterating that the secularism for Congress meant building trust among various communities, Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Friday accused the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi of creating divisions among Hindus and Muslims.
Jayant Chaudhary has plenty of time to make his own mistakes. But this election is a crucial test of his leadership.
Shah said Banerjee will not be in a position to oppose the implementation of the CAA as she will cease to be the chief minister after the assembly polls likely in April-May this year.
'Will the liberals explain if minorities are under such a dire threat in India, how come more and more groups want to separate from the majority and want themselves to be declared a minority?' asks Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Kishor dared the BJP to release the full record of the chat on Clubhouse, a social media platform, and claimed that the saffron camp would not get more than 100 assembly seats in the ongoing elections.
'...It won't help the party run a peaceful and equitable India,' warns Vir Sanghvi.
'For Muslims it is time to understand what sense of fears are in the minds of Hindus.' 'I think the conversation somewhere is not taking place.'
India and the United States can work together not to fight an 'authoritarian' China but to make it observe the rule of law, former US diplomat and Harvard professor Nicholas Burns said on Friday in a conversation with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
'The Hindu quest for political power in terms of a Hindu identity can pose a problem for tolerance, as the alignment of religion with power often does.'
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