According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The states and union territories where the elections are being held in this phase are Assam (4), Bihar (5), Chhattisgarh (7), Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (2), Goa (2), Gujarat (25), Karnataka (14), Maharashtra (11), Madhya Pradesh (8), Uttar Pradesh (10) and West Bengal (4). The BJP has bagged the Surat seat unopposed.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Nishikant Dubey on Wednesday wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker to move a breach of privilege motion notice against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi a day after his speech in Lok Sabha where he made certain allegations about Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his association with industrialist Gautam Adani.
Gujarat assembly Speaker Nimaben Acharya, who won from Bhuj seat of Kutch district in 2012 and 2017, has also been denied ticket this time by the party.
Mevani claimed that Patidar community leader Hardik Patel's resignation from the Congress did not create much impact for the party.
Few in Varanasi expect the result to be different from 2014 and 2019. The only point of interest is whether Narendra Modi will increase his winning margin against his rivals.
BJP candidate and minister Kunvarji Bavaliya defeated his nearest rival Congress nominee Avsar Nakiya by a margin of 19,979 votes, officials said.
It was widely speculated that the mantle would fall on Nitin Patel.
'The longevity of the government is a doubt for me because when the going gets tough, there could a be a point in time where there might be pressure, from within the party or from the allies.'
'BJP loses a democratic election, then buys MLAs from the ruling party's flock and rides to power in these states.' 'Do you think Atalji would have tolerated this?'
He was also seen standing next to Jaswant Bhabhor, a former Union minister of state for tribal affairs, in a photo shared by the Dahod district information department.
The response was tepid in other parts of the country even as several INDIA bloc parties as well as other non-BJP outfits extended their support to the bandh.
'The Opposition will continue to be attacked through misuse of agencies, civil society will be force-marched towards extinction and India's plummeting on global indices will continue.' 'Minorities and especially Muslims will continue to have open season declared on them. Institutions will continue their decline,' predicts Aakar Patel.
'Kejriwal tries to project that his party is not Hindu virodhi.'
In the wake of communal violence in West Bengal and Bihar, Sibal had on Sunday questioned the "silence" of Prime Minister Modi over the matter, and said "let not 2024 general elections be the reason" for the violence.
Meet IAF Veteran Bhopinder Singh Saini from the Viro ke Vir Indian Party.
On seeing them, Gandhi got off his vehicle, walked up to them and shook hands with several people in the crowd.
'Episodes of targeted attacks on Muslims established that for a section of people and, sadly, even officials of the State, the election results conveyed no lessons.' 'Opposition parties must not be hesitant in speaking out whenever the mob with tacit State support targets Muslims,' asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times.
In the 2017 assembly election, the voter turnout in the first phase covering the same 89 constituencies stood at 66.75 per cent.
Stalin said one cannot and should not decide the mood of the entire country based on the results of one state elections.
BJP leaders and Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan and Anurag Thakur had accused Gandhi of insulting OBCs.
'The BJP is racing against its opponents by putting a chain on their legs.'
The Congress now knows that it is the only force -- however weakened it might be -- that stands between the BJP and India's evolution into a single-party Republic. Because, once it is out of the way, the BJP could sort out the other regional powers: Co-opting some, demolishing others, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The Congress on Saturday made a stunning comeback in Karnataka ousting the Bharatiya Janata Party from its lone southern citadel with a comfortable majority in a morale booster win that will be key for reviving its electoral fortunes ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
'This is becoming the new normal. Accountability of @AshwiniVaishnaw ji is zero. The GOI has no answers whatsoever'
The court of Justice SH Vora granted temporary relief to Patel, who had filed the bail modification petition on November 7 on the ground that he wanted to offer prayers at the temple of his kuldevi (local deity).
'...We should first look at and acknowledge what we have done to ourselves.' 'To not do so opens us to the accusation of rank hypocrisy and also reduces the stature of our globetrotting peaceniks,' asserts Aakar Patel.
Gujarat Patidar leader Hardik Patel, who recently quit the Congress, on Tuesday confirmed that he will join the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The BJP sharpened its attack on the AAP after its Gujarat chief Gopal Italia was heard purportedly mocking the prime minister's mother in a video, and said people of the state will make it pay for 'abusing' her.
Signalling both change and continuity, India's new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a third consecutive term, got into work gear on Tuesday with cabinet ministers and ministers of state filing into their respective offices to assume charge.
As Election 2024 hurtles towards result day in a medley of mangalsutra, mujra, mutton, machli and other barbs, these may sound like character names from Hindi comics of yore. Instead, these are the mocking, sometimes vicious monikers given by political rivals to each other.
In a scathing attack on the Congress in his address in the Lok Sabha, Modi also called it parjeevi (parasitic) party and claimed that it ate into the votes of its allies.
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
Of the 10 MLAs, eight including Vaghela and his son, who had voted for the BJP candidates in the Rajya Sabha poll, were expelled by the Congress on Wednesday.
Prashant Kishor expressed the view that the recent 'chintan shivir' could not achieve "anything meaningful".
The independents also scored big in some seats.
The priority in ticket distribution will be given to youth, women, and those with a clean image, he said.
Thackeray said people should be aware of how religious issues are raked up to distract their attention from core issues.
If Tamil Nadu voters preferred the DMK combine, it owed to the Modi-Annamalai combo's ideological battle which often crossed the line of political decency and also challenged 'Tamil pride', argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
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