While the ruling combine faces strong anti-incumbency factor, opposition Shiv Sena-BJP needs to strive to win majority. Sanjay Jog reports
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has called for tough decisions and unity within the party after the Congress suffered electoral defeats in Maharashtra and Haryana. In a meeting with top party leaders, Kharge highlighted the need to strengthen the organization from the grassroots, fix accountability, and address internal bickering. He also urged leaders to remain united and avoid public criticism of each other. The Congress chief expressed concern over the party's performance in state elections despite a strong showing in the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year. He acknowledged the need to learn from the setbacks and improve the party's strategy and communication to counter its rivals' propaganda.
The editorial in the Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' also said those who used to blame Jawaharlal Nehru for defeat in the 1962 Sino-India war should now introspect.
'Slogans like 'Ek hai toh safe hai' and 'Batenge toh katenge' resonated with voters.'
'That was my mistake.' 'Gautam Adani was not involved in forming the Maharashtra government.' 'Adani was not there in the meeting.' 'The meeting was at his guest house and we were sitting in his guest house.'
Sinha, a former finance minister, hogged the limelight and started trending high on social media on Wednesday after he criticised his own government for sinking economy in an article.
In his letter to Ajit Pawar, who too is a deputy CM, Fadnavis said Malik has the right to attend the assembly as an MLA and added that "we (the BJP) do not harbour any personal animosity or grudge" against him.
Even as the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Congress were burning the candle at both ends to hammer out a deal over forming the government in Maharashtra, the Amit Shah-led BJP was quietly planning its moves.
'I am trying to make the political system more answerable to the people.'
'The reason I am not anxious about the opponent facing me in the front (Ajit Pawar) is because of who is standing behind me like a rock (Sharad Pawar).'
As Bal Keshav Thackeray, one of India's most polarising politicians and Shiv Sena chief died on November 17, people in Pakistan expressed hope that his anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan legacy would perish. Thackeray often referred to Indian Muslims as 'anti-nationals' and called for Hindu suicide squads to counter what he saw as a rise in Islamic terrorism.
The return of a BJP-Sena regime after a love-hate war and gap of 15 years, demise of senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde, collapse of Congress-Nationalisy Congress Party alliance and rising cases of farmers' suicides dominated Maharashtra's political landscape in 2014.
'Someone who cannot even take his cabinet into confidence, how will he take the NDA alliance into confidence?'
NCP chief Sharad Pawar said his party had anticipated such an action against its leader Malik as he 'speaks openly'.
Maharashtra politics is at crossroads. Anything can happen in this dynamic situation. Uddhav will have to prove he is a worthy inheritor of his father's legacy and keep his cadre and leaders in the party stable. Fadnavis will have to prove that manoeuvrings on floor of the house was an inevitable political necessity to change the destiny of Maharashtra eventually. Modi and Shah will have to show that they can and will are resist use of 'the system' in the pursuit of power. Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com analyses the situation.
The Mamata Banerjee-led party, which has often been mocked by opponents for not having a well-defined ideological plank, seems to have finally found its calling in Bengali sub-nationalism, as a section of top party leaders feel only an 'inclusive message of regionalism, which the Bengalis can identify with, will counter the aggressive nationalism and Hindutva practised by the saffron camp'.
BJP sources said a meeting of the National Democratic Alliance is expected to take place soon to highlight its growing strength and to dispel the impression that the departure of some of its oldest allies such as the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, Shiromani Akali Dal and the Janata Dal-United have the left the saffron party without a major partner.
The TDP and JD-U will have a lot to answer inside Parliament, day after day, session after session, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP, which has allied with a few smaller parties, has sought to upend the state's conventional politics, which has so far been indifferent to Hindutva politics, by taking the ruling DMK head-on for its alleged insult of Sanatan Dharma besides involvement in corruption.
There was no official word on the agenda of the session which will be held days after the G20 Summit in the national capital on September 9 and 10.
'BJP and RSS may have differences over minor issues but their hearts long for one common aim -- that of A Hindu Rashtra.' 'And this time to prove this point the RSS has prepared to help BJP win this election with all its might.'
'Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Bengal can be the game changers of 2024.'
'The Maharashtra government is not being very clear; they are keeping quiet.'
Fadnavis also reiterated that the three-party MVA dispensation will collapse under its own weight, and asserted that once that happens, his party would provide an alternative government in the state.
Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar on Monday came down heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after the latter targeted him during poll rallies in Maharashtra.
If Uddhav Thackeray is fazed by the BJP's attempts to build a narrative against his government in order to bring it down, he is not showing it. He has fought against all odds to remain in the CM's chair and faced difficulties with a smile, reports Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
A day after opposition members disrupted assembly proceedings over a CD allegedly containing objectionable references towards the characters in the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, the Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday recommended a CBI inquiry into the matter.
'Unlike in the sporting arena, where sports federations moved from partisan to impartial referees, in Indian democracy's biggest festival, it appears we are moving backward from unbiased and objective to one-sided and partisan,' observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
About 56 per cent was the overall turnout for 10 municipal corporations across Maharashtra.
In Telangana, for more than two months, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao ran his government with just one cabinet colleague Mohammed Mahmood as Home Minister.
Raut claimed Navneet Rana received a loan of Rs 80 lakh from Yusuf Lakdawala, who was arrested in a money laundering case.
Fadnavis's comments in the Maharashtra Assembly led to an uproar in the House, with the Shiv Sena raising the issue of alleged suicide of Dadra and Nagar Haveli Lok Sabha member Mohan Delkar.
'When the chief minister saw how Manoj Jarange Patil had successfully held the state government hostage to his whims, Eknath Shinde knew he had a very clear chance of enamouring himself to these Maratha agitators by accepting Patil's demands.'
Vidarbha region has gained notoriety for a high number of farmers' suicides and the multi-crore irrigation scam. Sanjay Jog reports
The Opposition is also expected to target the Eknath Shinde-led government on shifting of mega projects like Foxconn to Gujarat, according to political observers.
Modi and his corporate sector supporters have identified Maharashtra as a key state where the BJP-Shiv Sena can pick up more seats. In fact, it is estimated that if the Thackeray cousins join hands, the NDA partners can improve their tally from the present 23 seats by adding another eight to 10 Lok Sabha seats, reports Anita Katyal.
According to a senior Congress leader, the constituents of the opposition alliance intend to move forward with the theme "Main Nahin, Hum (We, Not Me)" at the meeting.
'Since September 1, a senior cabinet minister has been to-ing and fro-ing between Jalna and Mumbai by chartered flight every single day with messages from the two deputy chief ministers and the chief minister to get Manoj Jarange-Patil to back down from his agitation.'
2019 was the Bharatiya Janata Party's breakout year, when it stretched the boundaries of what was thought possible and ended up with 303 seats on its own steam. Now it is forced to play defence, on a pitch queered by too many variables, asserts Prem Panicker.
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