Actor-turned-politician and sitting MP Locket Chatterjee has been fielded from Chunchura and another MP Nishit Parmanik from Dinhata. Also, a number of film personalities have been nominated as candidates in the high-stakes battle for West Bengal.
Likening India's progress to that of a vehicle that only has accelerator and no brakes, the RSS chief said those trying to stop it will either step aside or be eliminated.
What the election demonstrated is that the BJP has a stranglehold on most of the Hindu votes in the Union territory, observes David Devadas.
Any decision taken by Congress president Sonia Gandhi will be acceptable to all, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said on Saturday as talk of Navjot Singh Sidhu being appointed chief of the party's state unit despite his oft-stated reservations gathered force.
The Congress won 77 seats or 42% of seats in the 2017 polls. How then can Gujarat be called a BJP bastion, asks Sanjeev Nayyar.
The BJP is not taking the AAP challenge lightly. Amit Shah has cautioned party insiders to ensure that AAP does not cross a vote share of 24%. He has always seen AAP as a much more significant challenge than the Congress, observes Ramesh Menon, author, Modi Demystified: The Making Of A Prime Minister.
The meeting came a day after the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra, set up recently to oversee the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya, met for the first time on Wednesday.
With time on his side, that Hardik Patel will one day occupy the top spot in Gujarat is a no-brainer. But the BJP doesn't like rabble-rousers.
'The Hindu electorate is more or less in the BJP defined space now.'
The BJP which stormed into Mamata Banerjee's fortress earlier this year by bagging 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats faced immense flak when the final NRC in Assam left out Bengali Hindus in large numbers.
The modern world will not accommodate bigotry of the sort India is showing the world today, argues Aakar Patel.
Jayalalithaa was the third chief minister in Tamil Nadu to die in office, after her mentor M G Ramachandran (1987) and before that his mentor C N Annadurai (1969). The state government should have evolved protocols for the medical care of the incumbent, and institutional memory should have guided the government and officials in the matter, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Shiv Sena, an ex-BJP ally which has been a strong supporter of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, congratulated the people of the country over the long-awaited foundation stone laying ceremony for the grand temple.
Narendra Modi's real legacy will be if he can redesign the IAS and the concept of an all-India service, argues T C A Srinivasa Raghavan.
'If Mayawati had performed better, then the BJP would have had a much tougher time to win UP.' 'The present gap in number of seats between the BJP and SP would have got reduced.'
Mohammad Salim cited a news magazine which quoted Singh as reportedly saying -- after Narendra Modi and BJP's victory last year -- that India had the first "Hindu ruler after 800 years."
Many anticipate that by the 2021 assembly elections in West Bengal, the BJP may come to power, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'Whoever thought that building toilets and providing free rations to the poorest of poor Indians would give Modi a halo other political leaders would envy?' asks Sheela Bhatt.
Dominic Xavier offers his take on the dilemma of the Congress leadership who may feel that the BJP has secured a clear advantage with Hindu voters and the construction of the Ram temple may pave a way for Modi winning the Lok Sabha election three times in a row.
A 7-hr debate was held over the contentious bill. Oppn amendments rejected.
'These remarks completely expose the Congress....Rahul Gandhi. They are anti-Hindu'
Notably, BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis last week said incidents of 'love jihad were taking place in the country and therefore, laws to curb the practice were justified.
An editorial in Sena mouthpiece Saamana said it was never decided that the grand temple will be constructed through public donations, and political campaigning in the name of Lord Ram has to be stopped at some point of time.
Stalin, like his father M Karunanidhi did in 2004, may play the king-maker in a way -- not the king, unless the 2024 post-poll circumstances throws up a situation where he alone becomes acceptable to the rest, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Congress Lok Sabha member from the Kerala capital said the BJP and "Sanghi goondas" orchestrated the incident.
As CAB was tabled in Lok Sabha, West Bengal CM said she will never allow NRC in the state.
Modi praised Tamil Nadu as a special place and lauded the Tamil language as eternal and its culture as global.
'When violence spread, it looked as if Mamata was losing control, but soon, she was able to contain the situation.' 'Now, the TMC stands to gain the most.'
A blood-soaked Nandigram made Mamata Banerjee what she is today and underpins the hopes of the combustible West Bengal leader of clinching a third straight term in office.
The Bill seeks to grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan escaping religious persecution there.
'With the Citizenship Amendment Bill, Hindus from Pakistan can come to India. They have got a way,' says Gurumukh Jagwani who came to India on his honeymoon, loved the country so much that he stayed back and got Indian citizenship.
'Raj Thackeray is not coming to Ayodhya to seek Ram's blessings.' 'He is coming to seek political gain in the name of Ram.'
'If Rakesh Sinha introduces the bill, but it does not pass the Rajya Sabha in six years, then the bill will lapse.'
While Himanta Biswa Sarma scotched rumours that he would be the king this time, political sources in Guwahati maintained that he, and not Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, had a bigger say in choosing candidates, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
'It will be wrong to raise the expectations of tribals because of a tribal President. 'Tribal issues have not been resolved for 150 years.'
The senior Congress leader described the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill as "patently unconstitutional" and said with its passage in Parliament, the battleground will shift to the Supreme Court.
Modi's presence at the evnt would open wounds, the Hyderabad MP said.
But his opponents are making a mistake. They shouldn't be smug, argues Vir Sanghvi.
The second part of BJP president Amit Shah's interview to Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com.
Pakistan must be deleted once and for all from the vocabulary of Kashmir-related negotiations with a finality that is irrevocable, asserts Vivek Gumaste.
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