'Siddaramaiah was openly taking on the BJP's communal agenda, which very few non-BJP politicians do.'
Second-line AIADMK leaders and cadres alike say that by starting the talks first with the BJP and committing the party to an alliance without discussing seat-sharing, the leadership might have commenced the coalition discourse at the wrong end. According to them, even 20 seats for the BJP may be too many, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The ruling party is worried as the alliance represents over 50 per cent of the state's population, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.
Rohith Vemula's suicide exposes all of us as a nation, argues Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
"The Congress have gone and made promises in Punjab, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh that they never fulfilled," Rajeev Chandrasekhar claimed.
41 years ago, Dalits in Meenakshipuram converted to Islam, sending shockwaves through the nation.' A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com returns to the village to discover that past antagonisms lurk below the surface.
The Opposition also asked the Prime Minister's Office to probe the incident, calling it "shameful.
A day after OBC leader Swami Prasad Maurya resigned from the Uttar Pradesh cabinet citing apathy towards the backward classes, Dara Singh Chauhan too resigned as minister in the Yogi Adityanath government.
'Only the smoke is coming out now. Let us prevent the lava from coming out by taking proper measures.' 'I have told every leader that you cannot have a stable government without winning the confidence of the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and the most backward castes.' 'Leaders feel that by giving a sop here and there and by symbolic actions, they can win votes. That's all they want. Votes.'
'Education played the most significant role in entrenchment of Hindutva ideology in coastal Karnataka.' 'Teachers of most of the schools, junior colleges, degree colleges and universities are active agents of Hindutva propaganda.'
'She showed courage at every turn in her political career.'
The 75-year-old Leader of Opposition indicated his son and grandson to be his political successors.
The reset button that the Bharatiya Janata Party has pressed on governance in the wake of the Covid-19 wave, which also saw a major overhaul by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of his own Cabinet, continues as Vijay Rupani on Saturday became the fourth chief minister from the party to go.
Hundreds of RSS cadres are helping the Saffron party counter Lalu-Nitish's campaign on the reservation issue in Bihar polls, observes M I Khan
They are the contenders, the leaders of parties that will finally form a government in Karnataka.
She lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Samajwadi Party and the Congress, holding them responsible for the lack of jobs and migration from the state.
Both the BJP and the JD-U abetted the LJP split but interestingly, independently. And there hangs a tale of conflicting interests, gamesmanship, subterfuge, and retribution, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
For a party that has adopted the successful social re-engineering model from Gujarat, Rajasthan and across the rest of the 'Hindi belt' over the past decades, Tamil Nadu continues to remain a tricky customer, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'There are too many competent people better suited and poised to take on Modi. The Gandhis are not among them,' argues Harishchandra.
'We have made a pledge; those who kicked Rahul Gandhi out of the house he had lived for 19 years, will be kicked out from the corridors of power.'
A day after yoga guru Baba Ramdev kicked up a storm over his 'anti-Dalit' remarks, Bharatiya Janata Party national vice president C P Thakur was under fire by demanding end of reservation in jobs and educational institutions in the country.
Gandhi said he has respect for BSP patriarch Kanshi Ram for articulating the Dalit voice of Uttar Pradesh, even though the Congress had suffered during that phase.
If the Anandiben Patel administration was shaken by the Patidar agitation, the Vijay Rupani government would have to deal with the Jignesh Mevani-led Dalit movement.
'If these two parties come together, there could be amalgamation of OBC, Dalits and Muslim votes.'
Many anticipate that by the 2021 assembly elections in West Bengal, the BJP may come to power, says Mohammad Sajjad.
New Union minister L Murugan's declaration of Kongu Nadu as his native place, instead of Tamil Nadu, may be part of a grand BJP strategy to create new states out of existing ones, particularly those that have anti-BJP governments, mulls N Sathiya Moorthy.
Chirag Paswan once again claimed that a BJP-LJP government will be formed in Bihar.
A resolution to this effect was passed at the party's general body meeting in Hyderabad, party sources said.
Kickstarting his party's 'Mission 2022' with a 'rath yatra,' Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party, saying it has 'crushed farmers' and on return to power in Uttar Pradesh would 'crush the Constitution' as well.
The PM also told his party's leaders that their responsibility has risen as public support has increased for the BJP.
He claimed that out of 90 secretaries of the government of India, only three are from the Other Backward Classes and control only five per cent of the Budget, which he said was an "insult" to the backward classes.
Party sources are tight-lipped about the fate of Tyagi, who is a trusted aide of Kumar, the party's supreme leader, but has reportedly often left the latter embarrassed by going public on issues without waiting for a nod from the boss.
All 39 constituents of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Tuesday reposed faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and resolved to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections unitedly under his leadership.
The original suggestion was to call it 'Indian National Democratic Inclusive Alliance', but the word 'democratic' was replaced with 'developmental' after Kumar and Yechury raised some objections saying it sounded too similar to the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), sources said.
In yet another sign that not everything is fine between Bihar's ruling partners, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar opposes the BJP's demand for a population control law -- even while seeking a caste-based census, a red flag for the BJP. M I Khan reports.
'The Congress is trying to cover up their anti-incumbency by highlighting the Dalit CM factor.'
'Muslims may turn to the BJP or may not come out to vote in great numbers like they have in the past.' 'Anything can happen.' 'They can feel an increased sense of alienation, but that depends on the BJP -- on how it includes them.'
She alleged that her partymen's counter-remarks were deliberately misconstrued by the saffron party, reflecting its "polluted" and "casteist" mentality.
Siddaramaiah's anti-urban bias, which he does not bother to hide, may become the Congress government's biggest weakness unless it is corrected.
Hathras BJP MP Rajvir Singh Diler Sunday visited the Aligarh jail where the four accused in the gang-rape and murder case of a Dalit woman are lodged, but said he had not gone there to meet any inmate and that he was invited by the jailor for a cup of tea.
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