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.
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.
Tejashwi has refrained from reacting in public but is understood to have been upset over the frequent outbursts of his elder brother.
'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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
'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?'
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.
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.
'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.
'Probably only Sonia-ji knows the extent of what he is doing.'
Coming as it does only months ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Chennai meet could provide the launch pad for a national alternative to the BJP-NDA, and MK Stalin may be given the credit for getting it going, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The opposition has attacked the Modi government over the National Democratic Alliance's last full-fledged budget before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
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.
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.
'The win in Assam is likely to have a ripple effect in other north-eastern states like Manipur and Nagaland which have been reluctant to embrace the BJP in the past,' says Nitin A Gokhale, the distinguished commentator on strategic affairs, who lived and reported from Assam between 1983 and 2006.
As the nation heads toward the general election, the Congress fortunes have most likely dipped below the point of no return. The Modi-BJP juggernaut rolls along despite some hiccups. And the meteor that rose in the form of the AAP and its leader Arvind Kejriwal seems to be disintegrating, says Shreekant Sambrani.
He, however, expressed confidence that a series of state-specific alliances, where like-minded parties would come together on an anti-BJP platform, was likely for the 2019 general election.
'Where they lose, you never ask why they failed there, like in Bihar and Punjab.' 'You are stuck on the UP victory, thinking they have the mandate to rule for all times to come.' 'The BJP has 282 MPs, but can I honestly say that the BJP is the party for everyone?'
The demand for OROP has been projected as an unambiguous issue but a good policy argument must have a sound economic element.
Participants are eyeing the Bihar elections.
They alleged that the BSP was getting a 'bad name' because of the 'huge sums' being demanded for party tickets.
The Congress said it will observe 'Save Democracy Day' on Friday with party workers and leaders holding protest marches at all district and state headquarters.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and chief ministers of various BJP-ruled states attended the ceremony.
Other than providing Narendra Modi a sweetner ahead of the BJP's national executive meet in Goa, there are no major trends to glean from the recent by-election results, says Seema Mustafa.
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