'Both Nehru and Patel were thorough gentlemen and whatever their differences never disrespected each other.' 'Neither Modi nor Rahul Gandhi has much in them to claim such legacies.' 'They are symptomatic of the sad days that have befallen the nation midwifed and contemplated by Nehru and Patel,' says Mohan Guruswamy.
The Andhra CM charged the BJP and Centre with 'mud-slinging' and trying to 'damage his credibility'.
Though there is a full-throated clamour in the Congress that party vice-president Rahul Gandhi be formally named as its prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Nehru-Gandhi scion is personally not convinced that his projection will yield electoral dividends.
Indian politics, held captive in one way or the other by Ayodhya, may now well seek its emancipation from this issue, and the pursuit of welfare, asserts Congress leader Salman Khurshid in this excerpt from his latest book, Sunrise over Ayodhya.
All eyes will be on the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Biju Janata Dal and the Sena itself to see which way they vote.
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.
The BJP emerged as the single largest party but fell nine short of a majority, while the Congress, JD-S stitch alliance to keep saffron party out.
The Election Commission sent a notice to Mangal Prabhat Lodha, the BJP's Mumbai chief. This is probably because a leading newspaper highlighted his utterances on its front page.
Can un-democracy be the foundation for a democratic party that aspires to be different from all other parties in India.
In its sway over national politics now, the Modi-Shah BJP is what the Congress was under Indira Gandhi. Why would they indulge coalition partners, their greed and egos now, asks Shekhar Gupta.
He may not have been declared Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate just yet but Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday seemed to have already donned the mantle when he said the nation would be comparing his speech with that of Prime Minister on Independence Day on Thursday.
'With the victory in Maharashtra and Haryana, the question which needs to be asked is why the government was reluctant to share names of these people, because there is a possibility that they may have been funding the BJP's election campaign.'
Aam Aadmi Party Legislators on Wednesday sent a letter to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, seeking the expulsion of party 'rebels' Shanti Bhushan, Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav.
'According to a powerful section of the Congress the vote was anti-Congress, anti-dynasty and pro-Modi, in that order. They say Modi won because he represented and completely played upon "Bhartiyata".' 'Sonia is being accused, privately, of protecting her son at the cost of the party's interest.' 'For the first time ever, 24 Akbar Road, the Congress headquarters, is assessing the "neeyat (intent)" of the Gandhi Parivar, which has never happened before.' A Rediff Correspondent lifts the veil off the churning within the Congress party in the wake of the party's rout in the election.
He is starting to realise that an era is ending. And he is not ready to have a five-decade career besmirched by two alphabets -- AP -- that have cropped up in the AgustaWestland papers, says Aditi Phadnis.
The OBC face of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Maharashtra and former deputy chief minister, Gopinath Munde, who had joined the Union Cabinet for the first time a week back, was all set to spearhead the party's campaign in the upcoming assembly polls in the state to wrest power from the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party combine.
'We have to work for our victories.' 'We have to offer a better alternative governance model.' 'Not just criticise the current government.' 'You have to build bridges, learn from what has gone wrong and create a party for all people.'
'The BJP had no traction in Karnataka and Siddaramaiah would have scraped through if he had not done all that he did.' 'When you pander to one community, the other community gets irritated.' 'Then, when you make fun of the cow and the treating of the cow as sacred, in your effort to belittle the Sangh Parivar and its obscurantism, you are hurting your normal voters too.' 'It is okay to make fun of the Sangh Parivar, but it is not okay to make fun of all Hindus.'
Bedi is the fourth woman Lt Governor of the UnionTerritory, a post which was under the additional charge of Lt Governor of Andaman and NicobarIsland for nearly two years.
If the AAP wins 20 to 40 Lok Sabha seats, which is conceivable unless it botches up on governance in Delhi, it will become a significant bloc comparable in influence to or even bigger than several major regional parties, feels Praful Bidwai.
'The Modi Sultanate -- like the Congress Sultanate -- does not understand local aspirations and politics. It will repeat the same mistakes whenever it takes on powerful regional leaders.'
The Rajya Sabha election was personal so it had to be won and Amit Shah needed to be sent a message.
We sorted through countless photographs taken around the world to come up with the top photos of 2019. Together these images tell the story of the year -- capturing moments of hope and heartbreak, triumph and tragedy.
She began her career as an aspiring model in the late 1990s. A few decades later, she is one of India's best known politicians.
'If the Amendment Bill 2016 becomes law, the indigenous people of Assam will become a minority and the language, literature and culture of Assam will be lost.'
As the Narendra Modi government nears completing a year in office, the Congress on Wednesday stepped up its offensive against the prime minister accusing him of weakening democracy by running a "one-man show" while scoring maximum on "arrogance" and minimum on governance.
Describing journalist Ved Pratap Vaidik as a "Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh man", Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday questioned whether the Indian high commission in Islamabad had facilitated the meeting between him and Mumbai attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed.
'She really doesn't care if she is called heartless.' 'For her, the job needs to be done. That's all that matters.'
Pitching for larger opposition unity, six constituents of the erstwhile Janata Parivar on Monday shared dais at a mahadharna slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party's 'divisive' politics and accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of telling lies and not fulfilling poll promises on black money.
'...a dazzling flash, and then, fizzle,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
'The UPA was never soft on Pakistan, terrorists and even China, but Sonia Gandhi's Congress rightly earned a "soft" image on issues of hard national interest, leaving the field open for Modi to take it and wrap it around with his implicit Hindutva,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Do you know there is a 500 page report prepared by an inquiry committee headed by myself? When I placed the report in Parliament, have you heard any single Opposition leader give a notice for discussion? Why are they not demanding a discussion in Parliament on the report? They could have established that there was a scam. Today, a Parliament Committee report is as good as a Parliament report and this report says the 2G scam is no scam. Our government is suffering because of the media hype on these scams,' Congress MP P C Chacko tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier.
In an interview to ANI, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh spoke on various issues, including the Balakot air strikes to the status of Kashmir to the party's manifesto.
Several former colleagues say Kejriwal is undemocratic. But his loyalists stand stoutly behind him
'Feeling claustrophobic and humiliated by the manner in which the Congress vice-president was treating him, he started toying with the idea of floating his own party.'
Rahul Gandhi slammed the Modi government, accusing it of being against farmers, labourers, students and the poor.
'The greatness of Indian democracy is that it never lets any political pundit master the pulse of the electorate. Sometimes people vote for change and sometimes they vote for the status quo.'
'The BJP said they want less government and more governance. But they are doing neither. It is shocking to see them so ineffective.'
'Mamata is synonymous with Bengal, its culture, language, traditions.'
Nearly 1,500 akansha petis (boxes of aspirations) have been placed in colleges for students to reveal what they expect from a BJP government. While demonetisation figured high in villages, BJP strategist Siddharth Sikka says city youth were "more concerned" about law and order and sanitation.
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