Bengal, where the electoral discourse has mostly steered clear of divisive agenda, has been drawn into the vortex with the TMC and the BJP accusing each other of fanning communal sentiments ahead of elections.
Exigencies of electoral politics and individual ambitions often stoke family feuds and sibling rivalries.
Arrested in September 2019 by the Delhi police for making 'provocative statements' when Donald J Trump was on his visit to India, Dr Umar Khalid has now spent three years in jail without being convicted of an offence, points out Aakar Patel.
The five-state assembly elections are seen as a now-or-never, no-holds battle for the Congress, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Bharat Ratna for him comes nine years after the honour was bestowed on former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The two leaders together spearheaded the journey of the Jana Sangh and then the BJP for over five decades.
'Savarkar was the closest the RSS had to a freedom movement icon, however flawed.' 'Indira Gandhi wasn't going to gift him to them.' 'And a non-career politician like Dr Singh understands it.' 'It is just that his party never listened to him,' says Shekhar Gupta.
The BJP at 43 is a work in progress, with total ideological continuity and much substantive change in political method and style, observes Shekhar Gupta.
In the recent past, Adityanath and the RSS seem to have come closer. The warmth is more on the part of the RSS. And even now, not all requests from the RSS are accommodated by the UP government, points out Aditi Phadnis.
The Bharatiya Janata Party plans to celebrate Prime Minister Narendra Modi's birthday on September 17 over a period of 16 days as Seva Pakhwara (service fortnight).
Equating the imposition of the Emergency with dacoity, he said, "Generally, dacoity is carried out around midnight. Similarly, this dacoity of democracy in the country also took place around midnight."
The BJP can only form a government if the PDP splits.
Modi was seen holding back his tears, according to those present at the meeting, at least three times as he named Jana Sangh and BJP leaders.
'Unlike the Congress, the BJP is not a party that merely goes by family connections.' 'Scindia's future will depend on what he brings to the BJP table.' 'The BJP is also a party where vertical growth is mostly factored by RSS preferences.' 'To secure confidence of the saffron brotherhood, Scindia will have to be his grandmother's grandson and not his father's son,' notes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Vasundhara Raje may have had her faults but she is an unconventional and brave leader who deserves better, observes Aditi Phadnis.
'It is very unfortunate that the AAP seems to be looking at the issue through the prism of rivalry with Congress in Delhi and Punjab'
In the morning, he offered prayers at the Dashashwamedh Ghat and the Kaal Bhairav temple in Varanasi.
As the 240-seater prime minister attempts to moderate his image of hardline hero, he has made room for others to elbow in and that is what is happening. And that it what will continue to happen from inside the BJP, notes Aakar Patel.
'The only reason why it has taken him in is to rile the Congress and also to show, yet again, how fleet-footed the saffron camp is when it comes to raiding the pastures of its rivals,' notes Amulya Ganguli.
Raising the matter during Zero Hour, Chatterjee, a BJP member, said Lord Shri Ram signifies noble thought and honesty and the state of West Bengal should be run by people who believe in these.
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.
Scindia, who was also named as its Rajya Sabha candidate from Madhya Pradesh by the BJP, hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his "competence and complete dedication" to serving India and asserted that the country's future is fully secure in his hands.
Madhavrao Scindia briefly left the Congress in 1996 and was later pacified to rejoin ranks
Firing a fresh salvo at the Bharatiya Janata Party which had accused the Shiv Sena of paying only lip service to the cause of Hindutva, the latter's member of Parliament Sanjay Raut on Tuesday claimed that the Sena was the first party in the country to contest an election on the Hindutva plank.
Will the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party be able to improve its tally of 282 seats in 2014? Will Rahul revive the Congress's fortunes?
'With the big political job done, the time has come to pay attention to the economy, which is the main problem now,' argues T C A Srinivasa Raghavan.
Vajpayee's long-time associate and Bharatiya Janata Party veteran L K Advani, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and BJP president Amit Shah were also present at the event.
'You had earlier sent a Prime Minister from Assam (referring to Manmohan Singh) whom people do not even remember now'
If Advani's ideological leadership galvanised the party's cadres and core support, Vajpayee's soaring oratory, common touch, easy charm and convivial manners won over the masses and brought new allies on board.
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.
Bookanakere Siddalingappa Yeddyurappa has navigated the choppy waters of politics with the consummate ease of a seasoned oarsman, defying tidal waves of adversity
However, the AICC general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the SC committee has limited terms of reference and 'cannot bring out the deep nexus between' the prime minister and the billionaire businessman.
Preparations are in full swing for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's in Uttar Pradesh's Mathura, which will mark beginning of the Bharatiya Janata Party's celebration of its first year in office.
Rulers in New Delhi and their political aides in sensitive states like Tamil Nadu have to be doubly careful not to provoke a situation whose consequences may be much more than visible now to the naked eye, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Giving credit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and "good governance" in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states for the party's electoral victory in the Lok Sabha elections, party president Rajnath Singh on Sunday said the kind of faith people reposed on it could not have been possible otherwise.
Former Gujarat chief minister Keshubhai Patel died in Ahmedabad on Thursday after prolonged illness, family sources said. Patel (92) had recovered from Covid-19 recently and was rushed to a hospital in Ahmedabad on Thursday morning following health complications, the sources said.
The prime minister maintained that the commitment that the government had made to the people has been fulfilled.
The new legislation on J&K puts a cloud over the state's constitution, through which the state became `an integral part' of India, says David Devadas.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said the Bharatiya Janata Party was committed to taking tough steps to rid India of corruption, nepotism and law and order challenges.
Rediff.com reader Sathyhadeep shares his story of meeting former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
In his weekly column 'Rokhthok' in the party mouthpiece Saamana, Raut said state Chief Minister and Sena president Uddhav Thackeray in his address to Shiv Sainiks on January 23 had turned the tables on the BJP, which was criticising him over his illness.
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