'Does anyone understand India?' 'Does anyone have a larger perspective for India as a whole?' 'Today we have rulers who do not understand the ruled.'
'Besides Ayodhya, the BJP lost in nine other constituencies with a Ramayana imprint; it tasted success only in Thrissur.' 'In Rameswaram, K Navaskani of the Indian Union Muslim League won with a 44% voteshare in a 84% Hindu constituency.' 'In the 21 seats in the Ayodhya and Varanasi regions, both crucial to the Hindutva project, the BJP won just 7.' 'It won just 3 out of 12 seats around Modi's constituency,' points out Krishna Prasad.
Dalit leaders ask community members to give up disposing dead cattle to 'send a strong message' to the Gujarat government.
A new entrant, whether a popular actor or not, has not been able to sweep the polls, as their fans had hoped for. Given a proven pattern, it should hold true for Vijay as well. Or, something drastically has to happen between now and 2026, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Karan Bhushan rejects the charges against his father, saying the "allegations are political and made up. We will challenge them in court".
'Compared to other social groups, managing the Muslim constituency has always been easier for the secularists.' 'Just some symbolic measures and window-dressing would keep the Muslim flock together.' 'Having been betrayed by all the supposedly 'secular' political parties, Muslims should turn into citizens without any ascriptive identity marks,'says Mohammad Sajjad.
'How come the BJP won even in the Muslim belt? I am 100% sure that the BJP would not win in the Muslim belt.'
'If they harp on it again, they will begin to lose votes.' 'They have not lost this time, but they will lose next time.' 'Your committed votes will never be enough to guarantee victory for you.'
'We cannot forget 2002. We cannot forget Modi's approach nor can we believe him.' 'The Sachar Committee says the lives of Muslims in India are even worse than that of the Dalits. Since the Congress has ruled for 50 of the 66 years, who is responsible for this?' 'When the Samajwadi Party got the opportunity, they gave us the gift of Muzaffarnagar. In some ways, this has been one of the worst riots ever.' Varanasi's Muslim-dominated weaver community is disillusioned with the Congress and Samajawadi Party and far from being impressed with Modi. Savera R Someshwar/Rediff.com listens in.
The best-case scenario is that the BJP will top out at around 50 seats in UP -- a drop of 12 from the 62 it had won in 2019. Taken in tandem with Maharashtra and Karnataka, this is what is likely to put paid to the BJP's ambitions of a third term for Modi, argues Prem Panicker.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
'A large number of people from Sindh province will now opt to migrate to India as they would be granted citizenship through an easy process.'
Tamil Nadu is the celebrated home of the 'social justice' movement in the country, yet caste differences and violence has only been increasing in numbers and becoming more brutal in recent years, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Rajnath says incidents of atrocities against Dalits have come down since the Modi government took over.
In Phase 6, indications are that the BJP, which is defending 40 seats, will lose in double digits and gain in single digits. Not good, if you are the ruling party scrambling to earn a working majority, with just one phase left to go, argues Prem Panicker.
This appears to be a common refrain in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur Kheri Lok Sabha constituency where farmers want better prices for their produce and respite from the stray cattle menace and others want political leaders to talk about job creation instead of issues like the Ram temple and Article 370.
The fight over the Women's Reservation Bill will continue as there is no dilution in the Rashtriya Janata Dal's stand on it, party supremo Lalu Prasad said on Friday."The fight will continue and there will be no dilution of our stand on the women's quota issue," Lalu told reporters outside Parliament.He said his party was not against reservation for women "but there should be reservations for Dalits, Muslims and other backward women who are struggling in the fields."
'Dynastic politics has become a tool of convenience for political parties. The BJP does not hesitate to accept it when it comes to its own alliance or party candidates. The same goes for the others.'
The reality is that even successful Muslims are made to suffer because of their faith, and the opposition to Sania Mirza is part of the same story of discrimination, says Kashif-ul-Huda.
The parties which gave chief ministers and sent scores of MPs to Parliament, drew a blank this time.
New Minority Affairs Minister K Rahman Khan strongly favours reservation for backward Muslims as well as for Dalits among Christians and Muslims notwithstanding the Supreme Court's observation on the sub-quota issue.
Where do Vijay and his TVK expect to get their votes from? Vijay has a huge fan following among women, but will they automatically become his voters like they had done for MGR's AIADMK, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Leaders and members of the Hindu community rue the fact that they are not given proper representation and many are not even registered as voters.
The CMP smacked of Lalu's hallmark-- social engineering.
However, the government may not be ready for a debate on the recommendations in Parliament.
'In UP, the CM actually announced that his administration would 'take revenge' against rioters.' 'That must have been music to his police force's ears for it substantiated what the police always do: Take revenge on an entire community for the violence of a few,' points out Jyoti Punwani.
Muslims constitute 20% of UP's electorate. Currently, Muslim voters are divided between Akhilesh's SP and Mayawati's BSP. What will tilt the balance? Can Muslims back the winning party? Mohammad Sajjad explains the mysteries of UP's Muslim politics.
Muslims need to get out of their Isolation Syndrome, argues Mohammad Sajjad.
Several Muslim organisations have disfavoured the women's reservation bill in its present form and demanded that the government take up the measure only if it provides for a quota within quota to women belonging to Muslim, Dalit and Other Backward Class communities.
A large number of members of the minority community are uneasy about returning to their homes in Asthan village in Pratapgarh district of Uttar Pradesh, from where they had to flee 10 days ago following violent communal clashes over the rape of a Dalit girl.
The case was earlier registered at Chandpa Police Station, in Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh, on a complaint by the victim's brother.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
"India risks becoming one of the world's main generators of instability, atrocities and violence because of the massive scale and gravity of the violations and abuses targeting mainly religious and other minorities such as Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and others. It is not just individual or local, it is systematic and a reflection of religious nationalism," he said.
The polarisation politics seems to have succeeded in western UP much to the delight of the BJP. However the non-BJP parties are hoping that the polarisation will not be as intense and they will be able to hold on to majority of their vote banks, says Girish Nikam.
The polarisation politics seems to have succeeded in western UP much to the delight of the BJP. However the non-BJP parties are hoping that the polarisation will not be as intense and they will be able to hold on to majority of their vote banks, says Girish Nikam.
'I declared myself a Sikh. We want freedom from caste discrimination.'
'Now they're talking about changing the Constitution; they feel they have no reason now to hide their intentions.'
'Public dissent is the highest public duty and I will continue to speak out,' says Harsh Mander.
This is Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya's maiden Lok Sabha election, but political experts and voters feel he can easily win Porbandar seat in his home state Gujarat, despite the electorate facing some key issues like unemployment.
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