Chief Minister-designate Mohan Yadav, an OBC leader and three-time Bharatiya Janata Party MLA, started his political career when he was a student and rose to become higher education minister of Madhya Pradesh where he announced to make Hindu epic Ramcharitmanas as an optional subject in colleges in 2021.
'Unlike in Gujarat, where he could ask for votes based on delivery, in 2019 he will have to appeal to his core Hindutva ideology, by firing over someone else's shoulders,' says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Talking to reporters in Pauri, Yashpal Benam, the bride's father and Pauri municipal chairman, said he thought of getting his daughter married to a Muslim youth for her happiness.
It is time the current leaders who swear by 'cultural nationalism', that is religion neutral, assert that Bharatiyata is at the core of our nationalism and India was never a 'Hindu Rashtra', argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Most politicians and even non-politicians have been honoured because of what they were purported to be electorally worth for the ruling party of their time, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP, which has allied with a few smaller parties, has sought to upend the state's conventional politics, which has so far been indifferent to Hindutva politics, by taking the ruling DMK head-on for its alleged insult of Sanatan Dharma besides involvement in corruption.
Electorally, the yatra seems to have paid dividends in the south, but the march does not seem to be helping the Congress in stopping the BJP's surge in the Hindi-heartland states.
Shailaja Teacher, arguably the most famous Covid warrior in India, versus former student leader Shafi Parambil who defeated 'Metro Man' E Sreedharan in the last assembly election. Shyam G Menon reports from the Vadakara Lok Sabha constituency, which some feel is the most politically important contest in Kerala this election.
'It is less polarising than Hindutva.'
'When I felt that the party is drifting away from Hindutva, I tried to speak to Uddhavji. But nobody was ready to listen.'
Is the Bharatiya Janata Party back to its hackneyed Hindutva agenda? The question is being raised following the party's decision to entrust the leadership of the party's campaign for the forthcoming state bye-election in Uttar Pradesh to the saffron clad rabble-rouser Mahant Adityanath.
'No Indian politician has been killed in India for upholding the Constitution except for Kashmiri mainstream politicians.' 'Yet they call us terrorist or militant.'
'Their role model is Iran: high control of the citizens by the State.' In Iran it is Islamic control; in India, it will be Hindutva control.'
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Thursday said he would not stop using words 'Hindutva' or 'Hindu' even if political parties close to the Sangh get fewer votes during elections.
It was Bharatiya Janata Party's turn yet again to be hit by Wikileaks cables with a US diplomat reporting that its senior leader Arun Jaitley had remarked to him that Hindu nationalism is an "opportunistic issue" for his party.
The IUML is a major ally of the Opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala and an influential political party among the Muslim community.
The party fielded Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur, while Uttar Pradesh minister Jitin Prasada has replaced Varun Gandhi in Pilibhit.
Terming as wrong perception that Sangh is ideological founthead of BJP, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday said the essence of its activities is to build a strong India with Hindutva at its core.
In his absence, the party stares at uncertainty as many of its other senior leaders are either in jail or in political obscurity.
'How come the BJP won even in the Muslim belt? I am 100% sure that the BJP would not win in the Muslim belt.'
'In Western UP, last time a lot of Dalits voted for the BJP.' 'This time, there is a rethink among Dalits about the extent of their support for the BJP.'
Bihar Education Minister Chandrashekhar reiterated that temples are the path to "mental slavery" while schools mean the path of light in life, extending support to party MLA Fateh Bahadur Singh whose similar statement drew the ire of a fringe outfit that announced a "reward" of Rs 10 lakh to cut off his tongue.
Rajnath did not refer to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in his address.\n\n
Thackeray had addressed the audience as his deshbhakt and deshpremi brothers and sisters" instead of the traditional invocation of "Hindu brothers and sisters" at the Shivaji Park gathering in Mumbai.
Asked about the BJP's claim that its performance in southern states will be exemplary, Tharoor said, "The claim of an 'exemplary' performance is yet another product of the BJP's propaganda mill."
The BJP took a dig at Gandhi, saying the Congress vice president was visiting temples as his party has failed to win elections in the state for long time.
Embattled Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal walked out of the Tihar Jail on Friday evening, hours after the Supreme Court granted him interim bail in a money laundering case to enable him to campaign in the Lok Sabha elections, in a huge relief to his party struggling to gain momentum in the absence of its foremost leader.
Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh on Saturday asserted that the party will not deviate from its core ideologies of "Hindutva" and "cultural nationalism", saying that there is no question of a "rethink" on this.
Right-wing organisations are holding a five-day conference at Ramnathi, Goa -- headquarters of the Sanatan Sanstha -- from June 10 to June 14 to draw up a timetable for the "formation of a Hindu nation and protection of Hindutva and Hindu organisations". Sanatan Sanstha had hit headlines in October 2009 for its links with Malegaon blast accused Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, after the death of two people in a scooter bomb blast at Margao on the eve of Diwali.
'If you post on social media on an issue like power cuts in Tral, the police will come to your home and tell you to remove your social media post.' 'If you don't, then the local police threaten you that they will book you under PSA.' 'This is happening all the time in Kashmir.'
Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray on Tuesday said he did not go to Ayodhya in 1992 as Hindutva forces failed to unite under a common banner.
Narendra Modi seems to prefer that Hindu strongman image remain tucked in reserve, to only come when called; life's been more complicated.
The BJP president said the party would not deviate from the agenda of the coalition (NDA) it is leading.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and the tribal face of the party, Vishnu Deo Sai, on Wednesday took oath as the chief minister of Chhattisgarh, 10 days after the saffron party returned to power after a gap of five years by unseating Congress in the assembly elections.
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.
"If we do not get justice, I myself will take up the sword," Tiwari's distraught mother Kusum told reporters some time after meeting Adityanath.
Udayanidhi has handed over to the BJP one real issue to draw the line between it and the INDIA alliance, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Modi-Shah definition of secularism is, India is a confident, resurgent Hindu, and therefore secular, country.
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