It was not a one-way ride up though for the man who now could potentially become the BJP's national president over time.
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.
As the race for Maharashtra chief minister enters the last lap, Hemant Waje looks at several scenarios which can play out.
'Many veteran leaders in the Odisha BJP had met them, but their problems were never sorted out.'
'It is difficult to replace him because if he is replaced, it will lead to a sense of defeat among the Meiteis, rightly or wrongly, and more chaos.'
Neither Modi nor Shah had held legislative or executive power in Delhi before 2014. They have no training in appealing to the diversity of India as represented in Parliament. Their prism is the provincial politics of Gujarat. An exclusive excerpt from Vinay Sitapati's fascinating new book, Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi.
Nayab Singh Saini on Wednesday staked claim to form the next government in Haryana, hours after he was unanimously elected as the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party legislature party in the state.
A video showing the incident involving school teacher, Tripta Tyagi, and the Class 2 boy in Muzaffarnagar has gone viral on social media eliciting strong words from several political parties.
'PM Modi would have swept the elections in Kashmir after notebandi but then he scrapped Article 370 so all his good work went down the drain.'
Inability to take everyone along during his nearly four-year term led to Trivendra Singh Rawat's undoing. He tried to take control of all major departments by holding on to more than 40 of them, but still could not deliver.
It challenged the Indian Parliament's decision on Jammu and Kashmir that abrogated the special privileges of the state and carved out two union territories and sought a compensation of USD 100 million from Modi, Shah and Lt. Gen. Kanwal Jeet Singh Dhillon.
A video of the qawwal (qawwali singer), identified as Nawaz Sharif, briefly speaking about India, Modi, Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath during a performance at Mangawa town in Rewa district on March 28 has gone viral on social media.
DMK deputy general secretary and Lok Sabha MP A Raja has likened Sanatan Dharma to disease like leprosy that had social stigma.
If you are a BJP backer, you'd ask why Modi and Shah would even bother about Rahul Gandhi and Congress. But they do. Because they are serious politicians who win elections. That's why their priority is to ensure Rahul cannot shed his 'Pappu' image, points Shekhar Gupta.
The seat-share progression should worry the BJP. From the previous assembly polls of 2017, through the assembly segments in its favour in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and now in 2022, the BJP's seat-share has come down from a high 312 to 275 to 255. N Sathiya Moorthy reads the political tea leaves after the UP and Punjab election verdicts.
Opposition parties on Wednesday opposed the 'one nation, one election' proposal by calling it impractical and a 'cheap stunt' by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday said he will not hesitate from facing investigation in a site allotment issue but added that he would consult legal experts to find out whether such a probe is allowed under law.
In its sway over national politics now, the Modi-Shah BJP is what the Congress was under Indira Gandhi. Why would they indulge coalition partners, their greed and egos now, asks Shekhar Gupta.
'If Modi-Shah had not changed the leadership, one section would have parted ways with the BJP for sure.'
The Janata Dal-United-Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress government will face a confidence vote in the Bihar assembly on Wednesday, August 24, next, and it is quite likely that the BJP will do all it can to defeat the trust vote.
Tamil Nadu's Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin has reacted to Andhra Pradesh counterpart Pawan Kalyan's out-of-turn taunts with a one-liner, 'Let's wait', and thereby hangs a tale, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
In politics, if your objective is only winning elections, just Chanakya neeti might do. For governance you need both, Chanakya neeti and Ram Rajya. You can neither beat up the farmers into submission, nor dismiss them as 'Khalistanis', asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The Sikhs love a good fight, and that's what the Modi government has given them.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar -- contesting on a Congress ticket hoping to reclaim his lost self-respect-- still has photos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah hanging on a wall in his home-office and says it is not good to remove them.
On the Opposition's poll promise of statehood restoration, Shah said, "I want to ask Farooq Abdullah and Rahul Gandhi, who is going to restore the statehood. You cannot give it back. Why are you misleading the public?"
Non-BJP chief ministers are retaliating. If the Centre can use its agencies to threaten, intimidate and jail its rivals, so can they. The fightback will get more intense, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'The politics of divisiveness won't work.' 'The janta is too clever not to see through it.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel were among the prominent faces who exercised their franchise in the second phase of Gujarat elections on Monday.
The BJP can't be sure if it should celebrate that the old rival is fading or worry that new ones are rising. Because the last thing the BJP wants to see is alternatives rising, if only to the Congress, observes Shekhar Gupta.
However, "we don't know who is Krishna and who is Arjuna," added the actor, who has said he would launch his political party and contest the 2021 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.
'According to the survey, ideological issues like Article 370 and Ayodhya received only 14 and 12 per cent voter-backing, respectively.' 'It could well imply that hardline Hindutva issues have only that much voter-purchase, compared to Modi's overall popularity of 52 per cent -- putting the man way above the mission,' points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP's massive victory will make it hard for the party to derive a criterion for selecting ministers, as the claimants will be many and the berths, few.
Modi and Shah's next focus will be South India, and the Maharashtra and Jharkhand assembly elections. Shah is unlikely to abdicate control over the party even after he joins the government. Modi and Shah both know only too well that the party makes the government, and not the other way round.
Bhupendra Patel can never really break free of intervention from New Delhi. But if he can win over the Gujaratis and improve the BJP's tally substantially, he will have proved that he should be taken seriously.
A delegation of Congress leaders met EC officials and raised several issues, including the use of pictures and large cut-outs of the prime minister in government buildings and colleges and demanded that those be removed to maintain a level-playing field in the upcoming parliamentary election.
The Congress leader also alleged that a student told her that the police kicked him on the head several times.
Raut said he will meet Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah in the coming days.
After BJP candidate Mukesh Dalal's Surat win, Gujarat will see 25 Lok Sabha seats go to polls on May 7 with 266 candidates in the fray.
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.
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