Here are some day's snippets of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections:
It is almost official: Unique Identification Authority of India chairman and former Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from South Bangalore, the IT hub, against Bharatiya Janata Party veteran Ananth Kumar.
In a significant political move, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray on Sunday announced candidates for the Lok Sabha polls and also declared his party's support for the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi.
The Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party could suffer in the Lok Sabha polls due to "overconfidence" as its campaign is going on the lines of its 2004 "India shining" slogan, nationalist Congress Party chief and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said on Thursday.
The candidates contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha polls will now be able to spend Rs 40 lakh, an increase of Rs 15 lakh from the last poll expenditure limit.
"We are disciplined soldiers of the party," Modi said on party president answering all queries at the media interaction.
AIADMK coordinator O Panneerselvam is said to be upset at his son Raveendranath Kumar, a Lok Sabha MP, being denied a ministerial chance for a second time in a row, beginning with the formation of Modi 2.0 in 2019, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
Surjewala made the case for state-specific alliances while arguing for a larger coalition with like-minded parties in 'national interest'.
'More than one brand in a showroom is too risky because customer loyalty in this market is low. Most people don't drive different cars made by the same manufacturer for a lifetime, they experiment.'
It looked as if the BJP was hoping to use Rajinikanth to press their seat-bargain with the AIADMK. Now with the Rajini bait gone, the question now is not how much the BJP would settle for, but how much the AIADMK would be ready to offer, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Subramanian Swamy stole the BJP thunder in Tamil Nadu by meeting DMDK's Vijaykanth in Chennai, and his efforts seem to have paid off, at least in the interim, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Calculated or otherwise, if Azhagiri's firing of the first salvo after Karunanidhi's death does not create some space for him to politico-electorally exploit at a later date, there may not be any space left for him at all, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Though EPS has sworn peace for now, or so it seems, his camp is said to be considering the possibility of calling an early meeting of the party's general council, to get a mandate in his favour before things went out of control. Ground-level indications are that OPS had lost his limited base, which alone had forced him to patch up with the other, reportedly at the instance of the BJP ally at the Centre, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The party office in Lucknow buzzed with activity as enthusiastic Congress workers gathered outside the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee building, even before she returned from an overnight stay in Jaipur.
CM Yogi Adityanath said the BJP was getting widespread support from the people.
Sasikala's declaration of staying away from politics does not necessarily have to mean that she was retiring for good. She is only taking time to evaluate the post-poll chances of hers before digging in again, if possible, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The suspension of 25 Congress members on Friday again led to protests by MPs from the Left, Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal, who raised slogans and staged a walkout of the Lok Sabha proceedings.
Ahead of VK Sasikala's return to Tamil Nadu on February 8, there are some important questions facing her. One, does she carry electoral weight more now than her brainchild AMMK had in the 2019 LS polls? Two, can she retain or build upon the five per cent vote-share from that time? And finally, is there space for Sasikala to retrieve, first within the AIADMK and then across the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
With Tamil Nadu's electoral fate decided, all eyes would now veer round to the pending 'disproportionate assets case' against Jayalalithaa in the Supreme Court, and Stalin's own future within the DMK, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Mayank Gandhi said its chief Arvind Kejriwal's resignation as Delhi chief minister would not affect the party's poll prospects, even as the party candidate from North West Mumbai parliamentary seat claimed to have an edge over his competitors in the Lok Sabha elections.
However, the tilting factor still remains: Can the rivalling 'Modi brand' of 'soft Hindutva' and 'hard-sell nationalism' garner more votes for the NDA in Tamil Nadu, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Tamil Nadu has around 30 per cent or more of 'swing voters', and it is this segment that will swing the pre-poll alliance decision, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Barring Maharashtra, the poll percentage in rest of the states was in excess of 60 per cent while in Puducherry it was 80.47 per cent.
Rubbishing reports that China has occupied Indian territory in Ladakh, Defence Minister A K Antony on Friday asserted that there is no question of ceding any part of the country and all steps are being taken to safeguard national security.
The DMK has Stalin and Stalin alone as the key campaigner. The rest of them all, including half-sister Kanimozhi, are tied down to their own constituencies while those like party treasurer and former minister S Duraimurugan, to those of their children's constituencies.
Madhavrao Scindia briefly left the Congress in 1996 and was later pacified to rejoin ranks
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday launched a scathing attack on opposition BJP over its "double-standard" attitude towards corruption and attempt to "divide the society on communal lines".
Barring one of the earliest surveys of the kind in the country, in 1989, none has proved right in Tamil Nadu's case, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'It will take the Opposition by surprise and catch it in total disarray.' 'By waiting for a year Mr Modi will only give it time to unite,' says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
For Prime Minister Narendra Modi to dig up the perceived past of the DMK rival, now under a new leader in M K Stalin, may not gel with the voters, both old and new. If they are still going to vote for the AIADMK-BJP combine, it will be for entirely different reasons, and despite Modi's poll speeches, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The SP workers' confusion began last month when Prateek Yadav's wife participated in a function organised by Shivpal Yadav and expressed her support for him.
The constituency had recorded an abysmal 7.13 per cent voter turnout, the lowest ever in its history.
In true Karnataka political style, which cuts across parties and loyalties, any reinstatement of Yeddiyurappa, even with adequate legislative majority, could trigger rebellion from within, which could embarrass the Modi-Shah duo than any other development elsewhere in the country, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray on Sunday said that he has now decided not to contest the Maharashtra assembly polls. "Things were different earlier but now I have decided not to contest the polls myself," said Thackeray.
Modi, 68, was administered the oath of office and secrecy by President Ram Nath Kovind at a glittering ceremony at the forecourt of majestic Rashtraparti Bhavan.
At a press conference held in Jammu, the senior Congress leaders announced the party's decision to end its six year alliance with the National Conference, headed by Farooq Abdullah.
Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray's 2nd death anniversary on Monday saw BJP reaching out to Sena with a promise to construct a memorial befitting the leader's stature as it brought together the squabbling claimants to his legacy-son and successor Uddhav and nephew Raj of MNS.
The front-runner of course is party treasurer and long-serving party legislator, S Duraimurugan. A Vanniar by caste from the rival PMK-strong northern belt, Duraimurugan makes up for his weak political grounding through his debating skills in the assembly, and witty repartee, both inside and outside. Apart from caste and regional representation, personal loyalty to the leader would count even more -- but there is no death of loyal and competent candidates in the party for the post, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
A whopping Rs 30,000 crore is likely to be spent by the government, political parties and candidates in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, making it by far the most expensive electoral exercise in Indian history.
Though the 2019 alliance talks, if any, are a long way off, CM Jaya's current state of health and her long hospitalisation maybe a facilitating factor for the AIADMK to consider any BJP initiative favourably at the time, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
