'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.'
On the other hand, Congress' vote share has risen to about 41.4 per cent this time
'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.
Meet IAF Veteran Bhopinder Singh Saini from the Viro ke Vir Indian Party.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday took on Narendra Modi on his home turf of Gujarat, saying the state was nowhere near "swarg" (heaven) as claimed by him, and accused the BJP's prime ministerial hopeful of being concerned only about his chair.
Thackeray said people should be aware of how religious issues are raked up to distract their attention from core issues.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, the AAP's Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha alleged that the BJP is offering two options to his party MLAs -- they should either join the saffron party or the CBI-ED will put them in jail.
Legislative assembly elections in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state are due next year.
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 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.
'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.
The BJP has changed five chief ministers since 2019, including in Gujarat and Karnataka.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is contesting 88 seats out of the total 89, tops this list among major political parties in the fray with 36 per cent of its candidates having criminal cases. Thirty per cent of its candidates are facing serious cases such as murder, rape, assault, kidnapping, among others, the ADR said in its report. The number of candidates having criminal cases fielded by the AAP is 32.
The Sena said Uddhav's comparison with Indira Gandhi was a matter of pride.
The rising pitch of road shows and long rallies with hectoring pitches seem to have exhausted and numbed the audiences, rather than motivating them to vote for the party, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
Sacked Gujarat-cadre IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt on Wednesday withdrew his plea in the Supreme Court seeking suspension of his life sentence in a 30-year-old custodial death case.
In Gujarat, Amit Shah's tactic of spiriting away Congress leaders and MLAs is jocularly called 'shop-and-buy votes'. Although haemorrhaging the Congress is a vital aspect of his election blueprint, an aide said, "Amitbhai wants to win on our strengths and not by weakening the Congress."
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.
'This is becoming the new normal. Accountability of @AshwiniVaishnaw ji is zero. The GOI has no answers whatsoever'
Soon after Hardik Patel quit the Congress on Wednesday, the opposition party alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party has 'lured' the Patidar leader by promising to get cases against him withdrawn and has 'scripted' his resignation letter.
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.
Patel's elevation to the coveted post is being attributed to his closeness to former Gujarat chief minister and current Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel. Both have residences in the same locality in the city.
'The same thing takes place in the Congress and we have to call it democracy'
'I am a human and humans tend to commit mistakes. To ensure that the party does not suffer due to my mistakes, I resign from the party, whose forgiveness I seek'
If the Congress is contesting fewer seats than ever before, the BJP is set to contest its highest-ever number of Lok Sabha seats.
Party spokesperson says it was weak organisation and local issues that did the NDA in
There is no sign of it losing popularity with a significant section of the voting population, which appears to be attracted to the party for identity reasons, observes Aakar Patel.
Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh has said that the recent porngate scandals in Karnataka and Gujarat assemblies have exposed the real face of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the clean chit given to the accused MLAs in the Narendra Modi-led government was a foregone conclusion.
'It is creditable that the BJP builds the organisation set-up and then looks for leaders.' 'The Congress on the other hand has to care for the leaders more than the organisation.'
'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.
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.
For someone who is such an indefatigable litigant, what is stopping Mr Saxena from using the law to depose Mr Kejriwal? Maybe we will get the answer after May 25, notes Aditi Phadnis.
'...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.
Akhilesh was apparently targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In the coming days, unless Modi tones down the communal spiel, it will be clear that anxiety continues to drive his mind and clouds his judgment, observes Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Politely decline to be prime minister, and hand the baton to someone else in the BJP -- like Sonia did to Manmohan Singh -- advises Krishna Prasad.
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.
To understand Modi, listen to what he does not say -- vide NRC, suggests Prem Panicker.
There are three things you never do in a small North East state: Undermine local leaders, divide and rule, push homogenisation, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
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