In the third phase of the Lok Sabha election on April 23, 116 seats spread across 13 states and two Union Territories, will go to the polls.
Utter confusion prevails in the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu.
As the BJP snaps at its heels, can the Communists stay relevant in the electoral game?
'The reshuffle was expected to show some sign about the BJP's awareness of the looming difficulties.'
'But there is no certainty that the new inductees will be able to breathe life into the government,' says Amulya Ganguli.
Reddy alone will take oath on Thursday while his Council of Ministers is likely to be constituted on June 7, party sources said.
The government is following a path where it will not be irresponsible or profligate with public money but will intervene in the interest of the poor
It is the last place where the dinosaurs who once dreamt of ruling the Earth can still be seen in their natural habitat, says T V R Shenoy.
'For a party with a fuzzy ideology, one that lives only for power, having a leadership that thought vaguely about returning to power in the distant future was a distinct handicap,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
While all political parties have been talking about following in the footsteps of the debutant Aam Admi Party by fielding fresh faces in the coming Lok Sabha polls, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-U leader Nitish Kumar has set the ball rolling by deciding not to renominate his party's three sitting MPs in the coming biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha scheduled for February 7. Anita Katyal reports.
'Caste-based power politics made him think that he can get away with murder.'
Because of the reluctance to intervene structurally in the political economy of onion trade, the BJP is paying the price till today and might continue to do so in the forthcoming election to the Delhi assembly.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal with 19 seats, Congress on 9, Rashtriya Lok Samta Party on 5, Hindustani Awam Morcha and Vikassheel Insan Party -- in phases three to seven of the general elections.
The list, which is a mix of seasoned political players and greenhorns, has 17 women candidates, five more than the last elections, constituting roughly 41 per cent of the candidates.
True, Azam Khan is being targeted rather disproportionately and also because of his Muslim identity. That must be protested and resisted. But to say that he is a big messiah, and his profit-making educational enterprise is an issue concerning all Muslims of India, is absolutely unjustified, assert Mohammad Sajjad and Md Mohammad Zeeshan Ahmad.
The election campaign finally ended on Friday, May 17. Arindam Majumder reveals what he discovered on the election front on a long rail journey.
Many BJP leaders are of the view that most key members of the previous Cabinet could be retained.
With Wednesday's Parivartan rally considered crucial to reassert the popularity of Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad, the party has booked 13 trains to transport people to the event to Patna.
Lalu's return to the political forefront signifies the hold RJD chief exercises over public consciousness.
'The Modi-Shah duo won't leave the war zone without putting up a tough fight.' 'Modi's slogan for 2019 could well be, "I have done much. Give me one more chance to do even more".' '2019 will be tough for the BJP.' 'But it will be even tougher for the Opposition -- united or otherwise,' says R Rajagopalan.
Tejashwi has refrained from reacting in public but is understood to have been upset over the frequent outbursts of his elder brother.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday urged party leaders in Kerala to shed their differences and fight the coming assembly polls unitedly
'I am a labourer's wife, the mother of labourers. But I won't be a labourer's grandmother for sure,' she says in the hope that her grandchildren will have a bright future in the Bihar that will unfold in the next decade.
It took a lockdown for us in India to even recognise that the plight of migrants needs to be addressed. They were faceless and unrecognised. They were unappreciated and even hounded. They were poorly paid and exploited, notes Ramesh Menon.
Barring Maharashtra, the poll percentage in rest of the states was in excess of 60 per cent while in Puducherry it was 80.47 per cent.
Smriti Irani will reprise her electoral battle with Rahul Gandhi from Amethi.
There are no permanent friends or foes in politics. It's true that the RJD supported us on the trust vote, but it doesn't mean we needed them, says Bihar new chief minister, Jitan Ram Manjhi.
'Nitish has no future in state politics.' 'Nitish harassed the Yadav community no end in his earlier tenure as chief minister. So who will the Yadav community vote for in the coming state elections?'
With the "secular alliance" successfully halting a Bharatiya Janata Party victory in Bihar bypolls, an elated Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar today expressed satisfaction over the "experiment" and said the results would have been better had the parties discussed seat sharing in better way.
Modi's non-reference could also imply that the BJP may be keeping its alliance options open vis--vis the AIADMK. It could also imply that the BJP's national leadership had not given up on the DMK returning to power in the state post-poll, and the Centre having to do business with a new government in Fort St George, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
State leaders have emerged as the biggest road block for Congress Vice president Rahul Gandhi who is trying to give young leaders bigger responsibilities, says Renu Mittal
The Congress, out of power in UP for 27 years is making a big pitch to bounce back, on a cocktail of caste politics and promises of agriculture debt waiver worth Rs 49,000 crore and power rate reduction for farmers hit by high input costs and diminishing returns., reports Amit Agnihotri.
'The Congress will never change its ideology, but to fight this new kind of propaganda politics, we have to prepare ourselves.'
The year 2015 was a mixed bag for the Grand Old party --with the performance in Bihar being a consolation while the the National Herald case came back to haunt its leadership.
Consensus building is likely to be the biggest casualty.
The BJP will be the obvious gainer while the DMK will lose a major chunk of its vote bank.
'Probably only Sonia-ji knows the extent of what he is doing.'
'Since the rise of the Modi-Shah paradigm, the BJP has followed a simple formula.' 'Sweep the Hindi heartland and the two big Western states, and you can rule India with a majority by just adding some little bits on the platter from here and there,' points out Shekhar Gupta.
In a major exercise ahead of Lok Sabha polls, Congress on Thursday night constituted screening committees for all states and union territories for early selection of candidates.
Uttarakhand Governor Krishna Kant Paul on Saturday asked Chief Minister Harish Rawat to prove his majority on the floor of the state assembly by March 28 as the political crisis escalated with the Bharatiya Janata Party, claiming the support of rebel Congress MLAs, stepped up efforts to form its government.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances