This election will be remembered for being the first election where the Election Commission failed to take action on gross violations involving the ruling party that repeatedly used religion, communal slurs, lies and undocumented allegations, observes Ramesh Menon.
Addressing a public rally in Sabroom in poll-bound Tripura, Shah said that the Congress and the Communist Party of India-Marxist had put the Ram Mandir issue in the jurisdiction of the court for long, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for it after the Supreme Court's order.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday claimed that the Congress and Samajwadi Party will run a bulldozer over the Ram temple if elected to power, and asked them to take 'tuition' from Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath 'where to run bulldozers'.
'And if you think this is alarmist nonsense, you are helping it happen,' says Mitali Saran.
In order to pacify the dissidents, the party's central leadership had to replace Bandi Sanjay Kumar with Union Minister G Kishan Reddy as state president of the BJP.
'You will see more laws that treat Hindus and non-Hindus, especially Muslims, quite unequally.' 'Once you see this kind of erosion of secularism, it will be very hard to get it back.'
Sadhvi also said "there is no such thing as saffron terrorism," adding that "saffron means dedicated life for the nation and dharma."
'Ashok Singhal was an amazing missionary, a monk in civil dress. His personal ego and pride simply evaporated before the national cause.'
'You need a leader whom India can identify with and I cannot think of any other leader except Sachin Pilot in the Congress party.'
On May 2, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will step into Bihar and challenge the Nitish-Lalu order in the state.
'Yogi Adityanath will prove to be the most popular and effective chief minister, overseeing a regime of peace and justice, harsh on wrongdoers and rabble rousers, encouraging those who work for India,' says Tarun Vijay.
Soundararajan, who is also a gynaecologist and fetal therapist, made the remarks while launching Garbha Sanskar programme of an RSS-linked body.
'In the 30 years since the Ayodhya movement began, the RSS has created a generation of Hindus who are the mirror image of those fanatic Muslims who take to the streets at the slightest, even imagined, 'insult to Islam,' argues Jyoti Punwani.
'In India, the establishment not only endorses, but many a times instigates anti-Muslim hatred.'
Speaking at the RSS's annual Vijayadashami rally in Nagpur which was broadcast online and attended 50 swayamsevaks (volunteers) due to the COVID-19 guidelines, Bhagwat said when the Sangh says Hindustan is 'Hindu Rashtra', it does not have any political or power-centered concept in its mind.
Bhagwat said that as a member of the Sangh Parivar, he is devoted to his organisation and the society.
'In the past, our movement was against the colonisers, but presently our struggle against communalism is a movement against those who stood with the colonisers'
'The brutal violence of the UP government's first response to the anti-CAA protests suggests that the BJP will test drive the NPR/NRC in UP, where it has both a massive majority in the assembly and a chief minister whose instinct for Hindutva extremism and whose appetite for punitive policing allows a prime minister as darkly majoritarian as Modi to appear statesman-like,' notes Mukul Kesavan.
MEA said such comments cannot absolve Pak of the blatant persecution of the religious minorities and said the Pak PM needs to look inwards.
'The people who demolished the Babri Masjid in 1992, the same people were asked to form a trust and start temple construction'
'The message from those in power is clear. Either agree with us or suffer the consequences'
The Sena has repeatedly said that its choice for the the highest office is the RSS chief.
'A Muslim is lynched somewhere, and you forward the video of the lynching through WhatsApp.' 'So, you participate in that lynching without actually doing it. You endorse it without being a party to it.'
'Despite our being a part of a welfare state, benefits are not trickling down to the intended beneficiaries at the desired levels. People's aspirations about leading a dignified life are often met with challenges. One of them, primarily, being poverty'
'Lord Ram's history has reached Indonesia, but not Owaisi's home.'
Modi believes that the Congress leadership does not have the political sagacity to undertake a course correction because of its preoccupation about not losing its current gains in the voter base, observes Shekhar Iyer.
'The job of RSS is to unite the Hindu society and make it fearless, self-reliant and selfless,' says RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat
Caste assertions, including from the upper castes, could have the Sangh Parivar stumble yet again in its efforts to construct a Hindu rashtra.
'India's defining characteristic has been its ability to manage and sustain democratic governance through an accommodation of ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity.'
'Whatever is left of all institutions will also go away.'
"... The conspiracy to murder Mahatma Gandhi was not the handiwork of a lone wolf or a few fanatic members of the Hindu Mahasabha. Most importantly, it was not conceived just a few weeks before 30 January 1948," reveals The Murderer, the Monarch and the Fakir: A New Investigation of Mahatma Gandhi's Assassination, authored by Appu Suresh Esthose and Priyanka Kotamraju.
The modern world will not accommodate bigotry of the sort India is showing the world today, argues Aakar Patel.
'Are we so ready to believe that in this country whose virtues we constantly shout from the rooftops, there is no single person -- other than Modi -- in a minimum of 272 elected MPs with the talent and ability to lead this country?' asks Prem Panicker.
'There was trust, but perhaps there was also this apprehension that given the supreme post of prime minister, Sonia Gandhi felt her authority may be a challenged.'
'They have no incentive to be part of either the NDA or INDIA at this stage, but they may hedge their bets towards the winning coalition in the post-poll setting.'
Godse's choice fitted with the Hindutva world view in which the assertion of masculinity, power and virility -- both discursively and institutionally -- occupied the central position. His close association with Savarkar seems only to have sharpened his uncompromising views on women.
'Everyone is entitled to their opinion because we live in a country like India and not a place where Shalini is taken, where forget having an opinion, women can't even talk to their family on the phone.'
'A setback in UP will be nothing short of a political disaster on the eve of the 2024 general election.' 'Will it mean that Modi will be able to stay in his new house only for a year after it becomes ready?' asks Amulya Ganguli.
By keeping the Sanatana Dharma row alive and adding the Ayodhya temple consecration scheduled for January 22 and adding the free darshan promise from four polled states to the entire country, the BJP may have a self-fulfilling concoction, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Having fared not too successfully in Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand, the BJP can't afford to disappoint its supporters in Delhi,' says Amulya Ganguli.
