'Freebies are yet be proven a 'pucca' vote-catcher. But don't say that to KCR because he takes pride in two things: His record of delivery and imagination,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'Gujarat is number one in public relations and marketing. Gujarat's PR is strong, it washes like a strong washing soap... The third phase is ours. It is our family and household elections, let him come there... Banaras and UP have taken on the challenge.' Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav tells Rediff.com contributor Neeta Kolhatkar how he plans to keep Narendra Modi at bay.
He blamed policies of the Congress-led governments for the Kashmir issue remaining unresolved.
'Voting also involves communal factors, caste factors and so on, but increasingly, the caste factor is making less and less sense to the Indian voter,' says journalist and author Manu Joseph.
Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and senior Congress leader Murli Deora are among the seven candidates from Maharashtra that were on Friday elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha in the biennial polls in Mumbai.
The Prithviraj Chavan government wants to retain its strongholds and ensure there is negligible anti-incumbency. That many of its decisions can run into legal problems is not an immediate worry, says Neeta Kolhatkar.
Emboldened by general and state poll results, and Narendra Modi's appeal among voters, the Bharatiya Janata Party has declined former senior ally Shiv Sena's face-saving terms
The court struck down the portion of the Speaker's order by which the legislators were disqualified till the end of the 15th Karnataka assembly.
Smriti Irani will reprise her electoral battle with Rahul Gandhi from Amethi.
Election 2014 has witnessed an impressive increase in the voter turnout. But we bumped into a disgruntled citizen, who explains why he is not impressed and why he will not vote this year.
Rural slowdown may delay growth in the economy.
'Competence, experience, matter, did you say?' 'No music was sweeter than the mash of xenophobia, jingoism, racism, misogyny.' 'And the master busker to play the tune was round the corner to capture an eager audience just in the nick of time.' Shreekant Sambrani on the Trump Triumph a week after his upset victory.
Despite receiving so much love from Gujarat, Modi didn't bother to visit the bereaved parents of those 22 children who lost their lives in Surat, points out Jyoti Punwani.
Scores of American election campaign consultants, including several staffers who worked on United States President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, are in India, offering their expertise to several politicians and parties.
The Election Commission must ensure that soldiers, paramilitary forces and railway employees who work outside their home states are given proper avenues to cast their votes, says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
He was arrested after a 'brief exchange of fire'.
'Where in parliamentary democracies around the world do political parties drag Supreme Court judges in the middle marches of the night to decide who will rule?' asks Sunil Sethi.
As the fierce contest between estranged saffron allies Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party to win the BMC continued, Maharashtra BJP president Raosaheb Danve Thursday said his party may be able to rule the cash-rich body with the support of some independents.
In Maharashtra, where the 'Mahayuti' alliance of BJP, Shiv Sena and smaller parties is against the 'Maha-agadhi' led by the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party whereas the ruling BJP is locked in a contest with the opposition Congress and the fledgling Jannayak Janata Party for the 90 assembly seats in Haryana.
She said poor people and farmers have been badly hit by high denomination rupee ban decision.
'A full majority might please the stock market for a couple of days, but the damage it usually does over five years is too high a price to pay,' argues Aakar
Government officials favoured compulsory biometric identification but said it did not happen because of the Supreme Court judgment on Aadhaar
'If Nitish goes alone, he will be washed away.' 'If he hand holds the BJP, it will again crush him because it will be known that he has sided with the BJP because he doesn't have any other option.' 'Lalu knows Nitish coming back will be a political gain for Lalu.'
Seven young students from different parts of the country had a wide-ranging discussion from bringing out Congress manifesto in Braille, setting up gender-neutral toilets to steps for removing inequalities in education system and caste discrimination in society with the Congress chief.
Religion or caste is a key part of India's political discourse, the Supreme Court observed on Wednesday and asked whether seeking of votes on that basis would amount to "corrupt practice" under the election law.
'The bonhomie that once characterised the Shiv Sena and BJP was clearly missing this time. Is there a deeper divide than what was apparent?'
'Bangladeshi Muslims want to increase their population in India.' 'They have made colonies in India.' 'Rohingyas are doing the same.' 'This has to stop.'
The economics behind the surprising popularity of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.
'The voter thinks that the State is not going to impartially deliver services, provide justice, basic law and order, social insurance -- so as a voter it's very rational that I may choose a criminal who will help me navigate the State.' 'A weak State allows a criminal politician to be the person who provides that guarantee to mediate whatever problem the citizen has with the State.'
As Uddhav Thackeray consolidates his hold over the Shiv Sena, conflict within the ranks seems inevitable, says Neeta Kolhatkar.
The results are a ringing endorsement of Modi's popularity, his government's achievements in the last five years and his campaign, which centred around national security, nationalism and Hindutva.
The fever of banning meat spread on Thursday with such directives being issued in Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir and Ahmedabad.
A look at what can happen if the Supreme Court decides to implement the reforms the Justice Lodha panel recommended for the BCCI.
Mayawati urged the Muslim voters to vote for the party, saying her party has given tickets to 99 candidates from the community.
'The foundation of the 2014 triumph was Narendra Modi's appeal to voters in the Hindi belt. The Bihar Vidhan Sabha polls will demonstrate if he continues to appeal to them,' says T V R Shenoy.
Making a strong attack against Narendra Modi, whom he termed a "megalomaniac psychopath liar", Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh on Sunday stoked a fresh controversy saying why can the Bharatiya Janata Party not field a "better leader" like Sushma Swaraj as its prime ministerial candidate.
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.
'We should credit Prime Minister Modi with having foresight and courage and showing leadership on climate change.'
References to cow, beef and Pakistan, which dominated political speeches and rallies during the keenly-fought Bihar polls, resurfaced on the media.
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