Independent MP Navneet Rana and her MLA-husband Ravi on Monday said they will approach Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to raise the issue of their alleged ill-treatment by Maharashtra authorities when the couple was in jail recently.
'What has taken the wind out of its sails is the government's own expectation management and its inability to strategise on delivery,' says Vikram Johri.
'All governments try owning the message, but the Modi-Shah BJP has developed it into a fine art.'
'This is the first time in the world that the prime minister of a country is openly talking of buying MLAs'
'No right thinking student of politics can name one state where the BJP gains in double digits.'
'There are around 400 Lok Sabha constituencies where Dalits and Muslims combined constitute 30% of the electorate.' 'Also, 90% to 95% of Dalits and Muslims go out and vote.' 'So, if they are come together, they become significant electorally.'
'And Indians are loving it,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'In mocking him, Modi and Shah went horribly wrong.'
'It made Gandhi determined to fight to the finish, which now has the entire Sangh Parivar rattled,' says a Congress leader, privy to the repeated RSS outreach for a rapproachment.
For the first 90 days of 2021, from January 5 onwards, one Union minister will visit one district in Tamil Nadu every week till the assembly election.
'At this moment, the Trinamool has an edge.'
With two phases of voting already completed, political parties are busy with filing nominations, addressing roadshows and undertaking hectic campaigns for the constituencies that will vote this month.
Koshyari and Thackeray are locked in a bitter war of words after the former pushed for reopening of places of worship in the state.
Reacting to the results, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that in the by-elections held on 13 seats in seven states, the people of the country have given their support to the INDIA bloc.
Occasional lovers' tiffs have marked the history of RSS-BJP relations. To think that Nagpur will bring about any change in leadership is a misreading of both its intent and its power, points out Shekhar Gupta.
The Modi juggernaut is all set to paint the five south Indian states in saffron colours, writes R Rajagopalan.
As trends for the Jharkhand assembly elections showed the Congress-Jharkhand Mukti Morcha alliance ahead of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, the Nationalist Congress Party on Monday said people of Jharkhand have demolished the "arrogance" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the saffron party president Amit Shah.
Gandhi said they can only be defeated by responding with love towards every Indian.
Elections are due in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal that year. Early indications show Bengal holds promise for the BJP, but the party may have to recast itself to win Tamil Nadu.
Displaying a washing machine on its press conference dais, the Congress on Saturday taunted the Bharatiya Janata Party over the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filing a closure report in a 2017 corruption case against Nationalist Congress Party leader Praful Patel and said the ruling party's 'fully automatic washing machine' works on the principle -- 'join BJP, case closed'.
The Election Commission has reduced maximum number of campaigners for the recognised parties to 30 while for the unrecognised parties it would be not more than 20 in view of coronavirus pandemic, Additional Chief Electoral Officer (ACEO) Sanjay Kumar Singh said on Friday. The maximum number was earlier fixed at 40 for everybody.
Questioning the eight-phase assembly elections in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Friday that she suspects that the dates were announced as per the suggestions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for better management of the BJP's poll campaign.
Thousands of mourners jostled and some clambered on trees to capture the moment on their phones as former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's cortege left the Bharatiya Janata Party's headquarters for Rashtriya Smriti Sthal.
The BJP often forgets that in Dravidian Tamil Nadu, the voter does not mix religion, which is personal, and politics that is in the public sphere, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
It also includes Maharashtra deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, BJP leader Manoj Tiwari and MP home minister Narottam Mishra.
The swearing-in ceremony of Pramod Sawant as Goa's chief minister will be held on March 28 and prominent Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will attend the event.
There is also a buzz about Shah joining the government. About 60 ministers may take oath.
'Met him this morning and sought his blessings'
Take a look at the famous faces who exercised their democratic right.
Electioneering ended in Madhya Pradesh at 6 pm except in Naxalites-hit districts of Balaghat, Mandla and Dindori, where campaigning drew to a close early at 3 pm.
'The Constitution of India defeated the BJP.'
'The results show that he is the best person to manage individuals in the party.'
'Vajpayee would not have approved either of the way the BJP now functions or of the thoughts that it entertains in its mind,' says T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Arun Jaitley, J P Nadda and Prakash Javadekar were among the key leaders from the BJP at the meeting.
Nitish 'sent his emissary, Prashant Kishor, to me on five different occasions.' 'Kishor seemed to indicate that if I were to assure in writing my party's support to the JD-U, the latter would pull out of the BJP alliance and rejoin the Mahagathbandhan.' A revealing excerpt from Lalu Prasad Yadav's Gopalganj To Raisina: My Political Journey.
During his talks with the chief ministers, Shah sought to know the areas of concern of the states and the sectors they want to open up further from June 1, the official said.
The Congress now knows that it is the only force -- however weakened it might be -- that stands between the BJP and India's evolution into a single-party Republic. Because, once it is out of the way, the BJP could sort out the other regional powers: Co-opting some, demolishing others, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
'Are we so ready to believe that in this country whose virtues we constantly shout from the rooftops, there is no single person -- other than Modi -- in a minimum of 272 elected MPs with the talent and ability to lead this country?' asks Prem Panicker.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has honoured Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Jain refugees by giving them citizenship through Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), Union home minister Amit Shah said on Tuesday and maintained there is no provision of stripping of anyone's citizenship in the new law.
If the party's members aren't sure what it stands for, see no path to wealth or power, and endure control by a dynasty, which, almighty as it is within the party, cannot get them the votes, they are likely to explore options, notes Shekhar Gupta.
In Phase 6, indications are that the BJP, which is defending 40 seats, will lose in double digits and gain in single digits. Not good, if you are the ruling party scrambling to earn a working majority, with just one phase left to go, argues Prem Panicker.
