'Hindus have never been polarised across Maharashtra in any state election.'
The veteran socialist leader, who ended his long alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party last year, was responding to queries from journalists about the 'Hindu Rashtra' clamour, which was openly endorsed earlier this week by his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath.
Biographies of India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda, Arya Samaj founder Swami Dayanand Saraswati, and writer and freedom fighter Pandit Shriram Sharma have been included in the curriculum.
Will Vijay will go the most successful MGR/Jayalalithaa way, or that of Vijayakanth, Seeman or Kamalahaasan, or will he end up as another Rajinikanth who cries wolf at the last minute and quits the scene even before it all had really begun, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Recognising that "political compulsions sometimes overwhelm," he hoped the leadership of the main opposition party will recognise "what are the imperatives of the situation."
To equate the Hindu propensity not to persecute non-Hindus is a sign of mature self-confidence, not weakness as the rabid insist, asserts T C A Srinivasa Raghavan.
The Maharashtra Congress has convened a meeting of its legislators on Tuesday in view of the developments in the state that saw a split in the Nationalist Congress Party and Ajit Pawar being inducted as deputy chief minister in the Eknath Shinde government.
Calling former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda-led party "communal" following its alliance with the BJP, he urged Janata Dal-Secular, to remove the word 'Secular' from its name.
The Bhartiya Janata Party is back to adopting its old Hindu hardline agenda to garner votes in the on-going civic polls across Uttar Pradesh, where the party had failed to make a mark at the March 2012 state assembly elections.
India's voting pattern in the United Nations with regard to the Israel-Palestine conflict is lately marked by a calibrated distancing from Israel, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The BJP is debating the Hindutva issue at an ongoing meet in Goa.
Vellore is one of the two seats that the DMK alliance won by the narrowest of margins in 2019. For the DMK's vote-score to be so low in a constituency with a substantial Muslim population has not missed the BJP strategists' eyes, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Later in the afternoon, he also said that he was planning to hold a rally of the Maratha community at the protest site on October 12. "It will be attended by all the Marathas. It will show our plight and disappointment.... I will continue my protest here and will not even see the faces of my children till then," he said.
It isn't that a person occupying high office has no right to do what he/she likes. For sure, they do; after all, they are human. But there are also things like priority, timing and sense of larger country. Sadly, we live in a world awash in tunnel vision, asserts Shyam G Menon.
Pawar said, "Today, Savarkar is not a national issue, it is an old thing. We had said a few things about Savarkar but it was not personal. It was against Hindu Maha Sabha. But there is another side to it as well. We cannot ignore the sacrifice made by Savarkar ji for the independence of the country."
'A 14-year-old boy kept a status message in praise of Aurangzeb on a social media platform on Thursday. A complaint was received in this connection, based on which an offence was registered at Ashti police station'
The rebel legislators have been maintaining that they were forced to go against Thackeray as he kept ignoring their plea to snap ties with the MVA allies despite being told that these constituents were trying to 'finish off' the Sena.
The Bharatiya Janata Party swept Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh on Sunday inflicting a resounding defeat on the Congress to tighten its stranglehold in the Hindi heartland, in a big boost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and setting the tone for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
'Today, the BJP is using power in such a manner that they not only crush the Opposition, but even their own supporters can't rebel.'
Clearing the air around the distribution of portfolio with the Bharatiya Janata Party, Shiv Sena MLA Eknath Shinde on Thursday said that there has been no discussion with the latter, however, adding that the talks will happen soon.
'The BJP has ordered the AIMIM to defame the Shiv Sena, to raise questions on Shiv Sena's Hindutva'
The Bharatiya Janata Party's decision to replace its Telangana president Bandi Sanjay Kumar with Union minister G Kishan Reddy, a "softer" leader who can take everyone along, and elevate Etela Rajender, who has switched from the BRS, as its election management committee chairperson hints at a change in the party's strategy in the state.
Since 1993, when the BJP came to power after a stint of President's rule, the state has alternated between the Congress and the BJP.
In a veiled attack on MNS president and his estranged cousin Raj Thackeray, the chief minister said he does not pay attention to 'new players' of Hindutva.
RSS joint general secretary Manmohan Vaidya, apparently referring to the Congress's Bharat Jodo Yatra, described it as a "political gimmick" that will not serve its stated purpose of uniting masses.
The Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) on Monday said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's attack on freedom fighter V D Savarkar will lead to ebbing of sympathy he has gained due to his disqualification as Lok Sabha MP.
'Our fight is against his political masters, the BJP and Devendra Fadnavis.'
Addressing the annual Dussehra rally at the iconic Shivaji Park ground in Mumbai, Thackeray lashed out at Shinde, whose rebellion in June this year brought down the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government in the state.
'Unless she joins one of the coalitions, she has a bleak future.' 'The NDA option is suicidal, but INDIA could help her.'
'My father groomed these people and Shiv Sainiks supported them. But now they want to become owners and our institutions are such that they have made a thief the owner of the house. What is happening in the country'
"You want my father's face, but not his son. I was ready to come along. If you ditch me when I wanted to implement a promise given to my father, what should I do?" he asked while targeting the BJP.
Against the backdrop of Kerala's appetite for commonsense, it was assumed that this controversy would pass. Respect for rationalism and scientific outlook is strong in the state despite political forces gnawing at it for their own goals, observes Shyam G Menon.
If the corruption issue doesn't claim Mr Baghel, the Congress's chances in the assembly election later this year are good, observes Aditi Phadnis.
A Bajrang Dal leader said that a church was being built without obtaining prior permission and the local administration did nothing to stop its construction.
'The Shiv Sena and the Ambedkarites are two powerful social forces in Maharashtra with a presence in the toiling classes. However, they were made to fight each other by the powers that be. Now, they are joining hands while overcoming this contentious past.'
Markets in Uttarakhand's Purola and neighbouring towns remained closed amid heavy police deployment on Thursday in protest against the imposition of prohibitory orders to prevent a 'mahapanchayat' that was scheduled to be held there over alleged incidents of 'love jihad'.
Rebel Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde on Tuesday said he will soon return to Mumbai, and rubbished Shiv Sena's claim that as many as 20 MLAs of his group are in touch with the Uddhav Thackeray-led party.
While the main opposition party, which lost power in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections after a six-year stint in office, remained unclear on the leadership issue, it remained upbeat for having found an 'emotive issue.'
The strategic move will also bolster the BJP's push to decimate Uddhav Thakceray-led party by depriving it of its pet Hindutva and ethnic sub-nationalism plank.
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