The three-day celebrations began on Saturday with a recital of Yajurveda and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath performing an 'abhishek' on the Ram Lalla idol.
'They are attacking my wife; they are attacking our 13-month-old daughter. They are saying that I do drugs.' 'I'm giving an open challenge to Mr Nawab Malik and Ms Sana Malik let's go to the labs and let's do the medical test of our family and your family.'
Fadnavis said that there was nothing wrong with the slogan given by Yogi Adityanath and stated that it had been the history of the country.
The Delhi assembly results have underscored that a section of Arvind Kejriwal's committed supporters abandoned him because they were let down by his refusal to take a stand on crucial issues that impinge on the security and Constitutionally enshrined rights of the people, notes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'The message is loud and clear: "If you're not falling in line, we will open a line of understanding with the MNS, and then the Shiv Sena will be in trouble".'
'For the Shiv Sena, Hindutva is like a shawl which can be put on and discarded at will.'
The Kerala unit of the Congress instantly gets a headache when Shashi Tharoor lets loose one of his observations showering flowers on enemy territory. With every such action triggering controversy within a nervous Congress party, some feel it is high time Tharoor showed a degree of solidarity with the ideals of his party, notes Shyam G Menon.
Thackeray announces Rs 1 crore for construction of Ram Temple from his trust.
A new kind of history has been created in Maharashtra. Accept it. We need to give credit where it's due. Modi led this change... from the setback of June 4 to November 23, notes Sheela Bhatt.
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'These guys who are running away -- they are running away from all that the BJP stands for.'
A 'Hindu India' would not be Hindu at all, but a 'Sanghi Hindutva state', which is a different country altogether, says Tharoor in his new book The Battle of Belonging that was released on Saturday.
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray on Friday said he will back any candidate announced by the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar as Maha Vikas Aghadi's chief ministerial face.
Irrespective of their voting preferences, most voters would find this comparison with ISIS revolting. More specifically, would it persuade anybody who voted for Narendra Modi to change her or his mind? asks Shekhar Gupta.
The PM said the Congress and its allies should not encourage the "Pakistan agenda" and speak the language of separatists.
Latching on to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's remark that the threat of COVID-19 still persists, Raut said in view of the health concern, it is Thackeray's responsibility to take care of people's safety, and the governor should have rather appreciated the chief minister for doing so diligently.
The BJP's year has been marked by a remarkable ability to adapt its message and methods, rebounding from Lok Sabha election setbacks with improbable wins in Haryana and Maharashtra. The party's campaign machine, drawing on the strength of the RSS and its affiliates, has demonstrated a capacity to shift focus and respond to regional dynamics. While the BJP faces challenges, its adaptability and Modi's unchallenged leadership suggest a continued strong presence on the Indian political landscape.
'Modi cannot drag India back into a primitive epoch resembling the religious wars in medieval Europe and at the same time claim to represent the aspirations of modernity among Indians,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Manmohan Singh represented the finest aspects of India, asserts Aakar Patel.
A court in Maharashtra's Nashik district has summoned Congress MP Rahul Gandhi in a defamation case filed against him for his alleged objectionable remarks against Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
'The Ulema have come out as villains against Indian secularism, impeding the secular united resistance against violent Hindutva that is backed by ministers in the government,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah launched a scathing attack on Union Home Minister Amit Shah for his remarks on B.R. Ambedkar in Parliament. Siddaramaiah said Shah would have been a "Gujari" (scrap dealer) if there wasn't Ambedkar's Constitution. He also criticized Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar for not taking action against Shah for his comments. The Congress leader further accused the BJP and Sangh Parivar of hating Ambedkar and the Constitution. Siddaramaiah also recalled the RSS's opposition to the Constitution and Ambedkar in the past, citing articles from the RSS mouthpiece 'Organiser' and Golwalkar's book "Bunch of Thought."
Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Ghaziabad's Loni seat Nand Kishore Gurjar has alleged that the crowd which had gathered on Friday night to protest against Yati Narsinghanand had pelted stones at the Dasna Devi temple in Ghaziabad and police should have 'shot' the attackers.
'No civilised nation can thrive if it is possessed with the spirit of Hindutva.'
After being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, Trump started his inaugural address with a sentence that echoed Modi's coinage some years ago, notes Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
He, however, said that there have been some 'false cases' of lynching at times that have been filed against some people. Addressing a book-release function in Ghaziabad, Bhagwat said the DNA of all Indians are the same.
With all the evasions, one assertion made by the Pune (Rural) police stood out: They had found no connection of the Elgar Parishad with the violent incidents of January 1, 2018. Yet, the case against the 'Bhima Koregaon 16', which is based on exactly this alleged connection, continues, and seven of the accused continue to be behind bars under the UAPA, explains Jyoti Punwani.
Addressing a public event in Kolhapur city on Monday evening, Fadnavis pointed out instances wherein women were tricked into inter-faith marriage and subsequently abandoned after they gave birth to children.
I learnt that Yogi was deeply unhappy with the BJP's choice of Lok Sabha candidates. He had proposed a list of names, but hardly any of his suggestions were accepted.
Uddhav Thackeray, who played the bold gambit of taking on the ally Bharatiya Janata Party in 2019 and forged an unlikely alliance with the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party, was on Saturday left struggling to make sense of his party's rout in the Maharashtra assembly elections.
All eyes are now on the Sena factions, led by CM Shinde, backed by the BJP, and his predecessor Uddhav Thackeray, and their performance in the coastal belt in the November 20 polls.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi criticized the BJP for claiming to protect the Constitution while citing V D Savarkar's remarks that there was nothing Indian about it. He also drew parallels to the story of 'Eklavya' to illustrate the BJP's alleged economic policies hurting small businesses and farmers. He further supported the removal of the 50 percent cap on reservations and advocated for a caste census.
The Maharashtra Assembly elections are set to be a defining moment for several regional heavyweights, including Sharad Pawar, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, his predecessor Uddhav Thackeray, and deputy CM Ajit Pawar. The two Pawars, Shinde, and Thackeray are engaged in a fierce battle for political dominance, with the outcome potentially deciding the fate of their respective parties. The BJP is contesting 149 seats, Shiv Sena 81 seats, and the Ajit Pawar-led NCP has fielded candidates in 59 constituencies. In the opposition alliance, the Congress has fielded 101 candidates, Shiv Sena (UBT) 95, and the NCP (SP) 86. The election is also marked by intense factional fights, with the two claimants of Shiv Sena's legacy competing in over 50 seats and the two Pawars facing each other in nearly 37 constituencies.
Veteran Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, in his latest book, argues that Pranab Mukherjee should have been made Prime Minister in 2012 instead of Manmohan Singh, who was then recovering from health issues. Aiyar believes this would have prevented the "paralysis of governance" and "doomed" any prospects the Congress might have had to form UPA-III. He also criticizes the government's handling of the Anna Hazare-led agitation and the Commonwealth Games scandal, which he believes contributed to the party's downfall in the 2014 general elections.
"Is the current government a government for a particular community? Is it a government only for Hindutva?" Owaisi said.
'He too can become a good BJP worker like Rajmata and those from his family before him.'
If the BJP has to work as a junior partner of Vijay's TVK, then either the party will have to change the state leader, or the latter should change himself. Incidentally, ever since Vijay started talking politics and elections, the pro-BJP/Hindutva social media had stopped dragging his name into any non-existing issue.' In particular, they have stopped referring to him by his Christian name, 'Joseph Vijay', observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The final round of voting for the Jharkhand Assembly elections is taking place on Wednesday, with the JMM-Congress-RJD coalition seeking to retain power while the BJP-led NDA aims to take control. The election will decide the fate of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, his wife, and several other candidates. Key issues during the campaign included alleged infiltration from Bangladesh, corruption, and Hindutva.
It's obvious to all that the Congress is overestimating its success and the BJP is underestimating the people's message delivered through the ballot box, notes Sheela Bhatt.
More than 100 people were booked on charges of stone-pelting and rioting on Thursday night while a man belonging to a right-wing outfit was detained for questioning in connection with the vandalism outside the station.
