'Sachin Pilot has revived the Congress.' 'What goes in favour of Ashok Gehlot is experience.'
The BJP has more than doubled its vote share in Uttar Pradesh to close to 40 per cent since the last assembly elections though there is a slight drop since the Lok Sabha polls of 2014.
'The Election Commission has to deal with money power, intimidation tactics and caste politics.'
'The diversity of geography and demography of India is truly reflected in the challenges faced during the election process.' 'International observers have never been encouraged in India. The internal system of monitoring by neutral and senior government officers has become time tested and proving to be very useful during elections.' We, at the Commission, have to continuously strive to do things right and make sure that we conduct elections which are credible and transparent,' India's Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath tells Radhika Rajamani/Rediff.com in an exclusive interview.
More than 25 years after the Babri Masjid was destroyed, another generation proclaims its commitment to building a Ram temple.
'We will do it either by removing all the Constitutional hurdles or by mutual consent.'
The BJP cobbles up the numbers to stake a claim to form a government in Imphal. But ruling the restive state won't be easy, says Chitra Ahanthem.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday retained Garoth assembly seat in Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur district albeit with a reduced margin than in the 2013 assembly polls. The Congress, however, termed the BJP's win with a lower margin than earlier as a "moral defeat" for the ruling party.
To claim that Tamil Nadu was waiting for a messiah of the 'spiritual' Rajini kind is misplaced, if not mischievous, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Those who have followed politics even when there was no Twitter know what the word 'jumlebaaz' means,' says Utkarsh Mishra.
Kiran Bedi tells Amberish K Diwanji reasons for her optimism about change in the political sysatem.
But by picking on Kejriwal for his threats, unfortunate as they are, and ignoring the appreciation he gets is missing the woods for the trees. Hopefully, the media would introspect and infuse more vigour, not mere hype, in democratic debates, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Perhaps Arvind Kejriwal got it right when he described the party as Shivji ki baraat. In other words, without the pejorative sense associated with it, a ragtag. New, and new to the business of government, it is faltering, notes Mahesh Vijapurkar.
AIADMK's Jayalalithaa won three assembly by-elections from her hospital bed. However, the DMK heir's decision to disempower second-line satraps, who were running personal fiefdoms in their districts, and his fresh approach, could prove beneficial in the next polls, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Congress candidate Gabriel Denwang Wangsu won the Kanubari Assembly seat in Arunachal Pradesh in a close contest defeating his lone rival Rongnai Maham of BJP by 885 votes in the October 15 by-poll.
A party of newbies which had anger as fuel and hope in its own capability to work wonders suddenly finds itself not only in government but put on fast forward by everyone. These are heavy burdens for a fledgeling party, to perform under a microscope. Transparency is what they promised, and they are in a glass house now, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
'We have made no effort in recent years to build a national opinion on Kashmir amongst political parties.' 'At least we should speak as one country.' 'It has been a failure of our foreign policy that we have not been able to convince world opinion that something needs to be done about Pakistan.'
'We all expected Modi with the majority to tame the bureaucracy, but it is the bureaucracy that tamed him.'
If we have to elect Rahul Gandhi to rule the country because 'secularism', of all things, dictates it, we are strengthening the ugly aspects of the dynastic system of democracy that has come to infect India's body politic deeply, says Jaya Jaitly.
I think we are just too complacent about our electoral system. There's a lot that is very wrong with it. But we continue to parrot the boring mantra of this being the greatest electoral exercise in the world. Things are not going to change. Next election let's just boycott the whole process en masse, says Sherna Gandhy.
'The mandals and politicians are trying to project that this is against somebody. We are not against anybody. We do not want the celebrations to stop. It has to happen, but do it in a civilized way.'
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