Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda on Thursday met leaders of the party's allies in Uttar Pradesh -- Anupriya Patel of the Apna Dal-S and Sanjay Nishad of the Nishad party -- at his residence in New Delhi as part of its government formation exercise.
His successful piloting of the move to strip Jammu and Kashmir of its special status is undoubtedly the highlight of his ministerial stint since the Modi 2.0 government assumed office on May 30.
Bijendra Prasad Yadav, the senior-most minister in the state cabinet, also lamented that the lack of cohesion was causing allies to engage in allegations and counter allegations, a job best left to the Opposition.
It does not stop here, though. According to field information, state ministers, AIADMK candidates and campaigners are asking BJP cadres accompanying them not to carry party flags at common rallies and also avoid their saffron shawl on those occasions. BJP cadres are also asked to stay out of the common campaign when it enters a minority-dominated areas, especially of Muslims, and re-join later, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
'For Modi, it's not just winning, but winning with style.'
The chiefs of the central agencies currently have a two-year tenure.
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.
At the end of the day, Stalin expressing solidarity with an arrested colleague is one thing, especially if he too felt that the minister had been wronged, but for him to retain the person in office sets a bad precedent, which would not go unnoticed by voters, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
References to cow, beef and Pakistan, which dominated political speeches and rallies during the keenly-fought Bihar polls, resurfaced on the media.
Shah said that the people of the country will decide about the principal opposition party to BJP in the 2024 polls and they have not given this label to any party.
Raut said that the country is in such a state of mind that it can accept the Congress or Deve Gowda, but does not want the Modi- Shah duo
Two years is when the honeymoon surely starts to sour, so what should Prime Minister Narendra Modi focus on ahead of 2019? Devanik Saha offers some ideas.
Congress MP Sushmita Dev said that speeches given by Modi and Shah are also punishable under section 153A of the Indian Penal Code as they "blatantly promote disharmony and feelings of enmity on the grounds of religion and such acts are also likely to prejudice the maintenance of public harmony and tranquility between religious communities".
While Narendra Modi addresses rally after rally in Bihar, Shatrughan Sinha has been left out of the BJP's campaign.
By presenting the battle in Bengal as one between Mamata on one side and Modi-Shah on the other, the saffron camp has projected the former as a larger-than-life figure, a portrayal which has the potential of turning her into Modi's main competitor in 2024, predicts Amulya Ganguli.
Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde on Friday said not only his colleagues in the assembly but also Maharashtra is happy that 'Balasaheb Thackeray's Shiv Sainik has become the chief minister'.
The Congress may stand a better chance in the assembly polls if it followed the 'Himachal model', suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
This crisis requires political sophistication and governance skills. This BJP has neither, observes Shekhar Gupta.
While the Opposition is making a belated effort to form a joint front against the BJP, Mamata's ambiguous stand has created confusion, observes Virendra Kapoor.
If he doesn't win next year, it will set back the party's prospects in 2024. If he wins, it will be seen as his win as much as the BJP high command's, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Few had imagined the BJP would be able to travel this far when it was founded on April 6, 1980.
'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 compulsions of the Hindutva vote bank over 25 years in Maharashtra have made the two parties the oldest ideological partners and it is unrealistic to believe the situation has changed, reports Sunil Gatade.
'2019 now looks like a real contest.' 'It will not be a repeat of 2014 if the BJP has to deal with erosion of its already low vote share of 31 per cent, and also faces a united Opposition,' says T N Ninan.
'Why does Mr Modi only attack Nehru from the Dynasty?' 'At one level, it is pure politics,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
Here's the guest list.
The conduct of the Opposition is an "insult" to Parliament and the Constitution, Joshi said, quoting the prime minister.
The Congress' rebuttal came after the Gujarat police on Friday opposed activist Teesta Setalvad's bail application.
Despite being given the post of a Union minister, Rane has been behaving like a "roadside gangster", Shiv Sena's mouthpiece Saamana said in an editorial.
If Kejriwal wins the Delhi election, then most regional parties will copy Kejriwal's do's and don'ts of jugaad to win an election against the Modi-Shah juggernaut, reports Sheela Bhatt.
Naidu said that efforts are on to bring together all non-BJP parties and that he had met Congress president Rahul Gandhi to discuss measures on protecting democracy.
The Modi-Shah duo are standing with B S Yediyurappa: But B L Santhosh refuses to be silenced.
If the Opposition has any chance at the prime minister's job, it can happen only if they all stop dropping names and work at the grassroots-level, state-wise, suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The BJP, or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, are celebrating their biggest ideological and philosophical victory in some time,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Given Nitish's track record as an accomplished trapeze artist who can dump the BJP overnight and embrace the RJD, he can leave the saffron party stranded should he fail to get the chief ministerial crown for the fourth time, notes Virendra Kapoor.
The BJP's faces for 2019 will be Dharmendra Pradhan, Piyush Goyal, Nirmala Sitharaman, Yogi Adityanath and Devendra Fadnavis, says R Rajagopalan.
Democracy is the heart of our body politic and elections are its life blood. Because there is some disease that affects it, we cannot apply leeches to drain it off, killing the body in the process, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
Patel has never held a ministerial post, just like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was never a minister when he became Gujarat CM 20 years ago.
AFSPA can be safely lifted from almost 90 per cent of Nagaland, argues Shekhar Gupta.
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