With the general election campaign less than six months away, the BJP has more to think about than it had on the eve of 2019. It's the states that will be robbing BJP strategists of their sleep at this point, not the Lok Sabha, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
With the BJP continuing to be the constant combatant, centrifugal pressures will rise. Fractured relations between the Centre and the states as between BJP and non-BJP ruled states is a sizeable risk owing ahead, warns Shekhar Gupta.
One of the most famous Indian faces on the planet, everything Priyanka Chopra Jonas learned, she learned it on the job.
'The dialogues and language used in this movie are indecent. In Tulasidas' Ramayana, Lord Ram was portrayed as 'Maryada Purushottam' and decent language was used. In Adipurush, dialogues of characters are of very low level'
The Modi-Shah duo are standing with B S Yediyurappa: But B L Santhosh refuses to be silenced.
The Congress' attack came after the Ayodhya Development Authority accused 40 people, including the City mayor, a local BJP MLA and a former party legislator, of illegally trading plots and building infrastructure there.
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.
If the PM gives the historic opportunity of laying the foundation stone of the Ram temple to a Dalit girl, it will send a transformational message to the Dalits in India and will give them a sense of belongingness, says Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Monday, November 8, 2021, Lal Kishenchand Advani -- the politician who took the Bharatiya Janata Party from its parliamentary nadir in 1984, when it won just two Lok Sabha seats, to establishing the edifice for its present dominance in Indian politics -- will turn 94.
There are instances -- both from national and state elections -- of economic under-performers being returned to power, and also of parties being thrown out despite good performance, observes T N Ninan.
'Modi wants to go down in history not necessarily as India's first overtly Hindu RSS pracharak prime minister, but as a world statesman who built the idea of India as a great nation.'
Chaudhary, who took 13 hours to reach Lakhimpur Kheri from Delhi, several hours more than it would take to cover the 420 km-odd distance, also met the families of some of the farmer victims to learn their story of loss.
Most yoga teachers are not driven towards popular acclaim or fame. But Bellur Krishnamachar Sunderaraja Iyengar was goaded by the challenge to prove himself to all those who had dismissed him as a madcap yogi in the early days, and by a burning need to make yoga available to all.
'We are seeing an era where only what Modi wishes is going to happen.' 'A clear message has now been sent to others that if this fate could befall on Nitin Gadkari, then just think what could happen to lesser mortals.'
The BJP's message is that the past must be reinvented as creatively as imagination allows, states Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'Congress and BSP are in the fray, but not in the contest.'
'In today's situation, it is not going to help anyone's case if they try to politically contest with the BJP on ideological issues.' 'Instead, it is best is to swim along the tide, present the more acceptable face of the cultural Hindu, but not be a political Hindu as the BJP or Mr Modi is.'
'Mr Kejriwal has played it cool in distancing himself from Delhi's hotspots, adroitly pandering to the BJP's Hindu vote.' 'He neither visited the scene of JNU violence nor has he dropped by at Shaheen Bagh,' notes Sunil Sethi.
'You tell me without support, can the ABVP do these things? They are only doing these things because the central government is supporting them.'
It is in no way a government of the economic Right. The Right is limited to religion and nationalism. The rest is as Left as the Congress or any other party, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Shifting positions on religiosity and Covid may confuse the Hindutva citizenry, but you can rely on Bengal to turn a non-arguable issue into a raging controversy, notes Kanika Datta.
'Strategy is to divide and polarise electorate on communal lines.'
'I was told that Agra has never been cleaned, spruced and scrubbed like it has been for Trump!' A tourist who visited the Taj Mahal over the the weekend gives an account of how the city is gearing up to welcome the Trump Parivar.
Even as the Uttar Pradesh police arrested a journalist and three other people in Mathura while they were on their way to Hathras, home to a Dalit woman who died after being allegedly gang-raped, the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) has filed a habeas corpus petition in the top court against the arrest of the journalist, Sidhique Kappan.
'Some BJP old timers have remarked that the BJP is now driven by its own high command, the way the Congress was under Mrs Gandhi, says Subir Roy.
The jobless armies of youthful India are getting angrier and desperate, warns Shekhar Gupta.
Shah, 55, stated on Twitter that he has tested positive for the infection and is getting admitted to a hospital on the advice of doctors.
'What are the circumstances at that time? Had you thought Modi will come after Vajpayee?'
'There is core BJP support on the Hindutva line. It will continue.' 'Along with that, the BJP is ready to play the OBCs trifurcation card to its benefit.' 'If you see the post-Kairana result, the BJP spokespersons and IT cell have already begun talking about Hindu unity against Muslim unity, Ram vs Allah.'
'All statue-building is an exercise in hubris, but Mr Adityanath's enterprise begs a question: Can a state with rampant child malnutrition and 325 children dying in a Gorakhpur hospital afford Rama's benediction?' asks Sunil Sethi.
Trains were set afire and blocked, and public vehicles attacked as protests over 'Agnipath' swept across several places in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Jammu on Thursday amid partisan political voices in favour and against the new recruitment scheme for the defence forces that has set off a firestorm.
'Mahatma Gandhi, even for those on the extreme Hindu Right who believe he founded the politics of Muslim 'appeasement', is suicidal to target,' asserts Shekhar Gupta.
'If Mr Modi continues growing as a Hindu Hriday Samrat, better that it is done by restoring ancient temples than demolishing medieval mosques,' says Shekhar Gupta.
No one in Bihar will deny Nitish Kumar's contribution to governance, notes Aditi Phadnis.
In Yogi Adityanath's Uttar Pradesh wayward Romeos would all be in the lock-up, says Sunil Sethi.
'The incidents that used to happen in our time, have they stopped now?' 'Can you imagine they made an acid attack victim consume acid? And when did this happen?' 'When the CM was inspecting the thana...' 'History tells us that a party does not remain in power permanently.' 'Finally, they will have to deliver.'
At an online book release event, former vice president Hamid Ansari lays to rest the controversies surrounding his tenure.
'There's nothing in the 2019 campaign air, the chunavi hawa that tells you it's a wave election, for anyone,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
'Sachin Pilot has revived the Congress.' 'What goes in favour of Ashok Gehlot is experience.'
M C Mary Kom, who is also a sitting Rajya Sabha MP, said the alarming increase in the number of rapes in the country has left her feeling "hurt and helpless" while star shuttler Saina Nehwal condemned the 'ghastly crimes'.
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