'Don't be surprised if the Census forms come with a caste box.' 'I will be surprised if it doesn't. It will be a point conceded to Rahul Gandhi and his allies,' asserts Shekhar Gupta. The BJP machine could take all 3 in its stride, but this election has changed that, notes Shekhar Gupta.
KC Tyagi also spoke on special status for Bihar, which has been a demand of the party and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will move the motion today in the Lok Sabha to choose Om Birla as the Speaker of the lower house amid a tussle for the post with the opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA).
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray on Friday said he will back any candidate announced by the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar as Maha Vikas Aghadi's chief ministerial face.
Singh targeted the Congress using a 'snakes and ladders' analogy, saying the party will fall to zero from 99 after being bitten by a snake -- referring to the grand old party winning 99 seats in the Lok Sabha polls.
China routinely objects to Indian leaders' visits to Arunachal Pradesh to buttress its stand.
There was no loud noise of anything breaking when the rods of a portion of a roof collapsed at the Delhi airport's Terminal-1, Krishna Kumar, a cab driver who was at the site of the incident, said on Friday.
"If you see in the context of alliances and statistics, then this is the strongest alliance government," Modi said while addressing newly-elected MPs and leaders of the NDA from across the country following his election as leader of the ruling bloc ahead of his government's swearing-in on Sunday.
'Nitish may take such a decision because he was the first person who was with the INDIA front.' 'He went back only because he did not get proper encouragement from the Congress.' 'Nitish will take a decision provided there is a strong alternative.' 'If he feels ours is a weak coalition, he will not come.' 'Then, this government will continue for five years.'
He also said that India was a parliamentary democracy and the decision to abrogate Article 370 provisions, which accorded special status to Jammu and Kashmir, was taken after detailed discussion in Parliament and with the support of majority of the members.
Ravinder Kumar was sleeping after finishing his night shift Friday morning when a call from Indira Gandhi International Airport Police Station turned his life upside down.
There is little doubt that the prime minister's own charisma exceeds that of his party, but 2024 is proof that no party can ultimately depend on one person to deliver victory all the time, points out R Jagannathan.
'I have serious doubts about the longevity of the NDA government and the longevity of the 18th Lok Sabha itself.'
Banerjee said the prime minister will now have to move around the country and also abroad with two crutches.
'The longevity of the government is a doubt for me because when the going gets tough, there could a be a point in time where there might be pressure, from within the party or from the allies.'
After a local court in Vijayawada on Tuesday rejected a house custody petition filed by Telugu Desam Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu, his legal team moved two pleas in the high court -- one seeking quashing of the case and another a bail petition.
With the reality of coalition politics staring the BJP in its face, this was inevitable, points out Ramesh Menon.
Several opposition parties have claimed that the mandate of 2024 Lok Sabha elections was against the ruling haratiya Janata Party, even though it was able to form the government with support of other parties.
There is a view that heavyweight portfolios like home, finance, defence and external affairs besides education and culture, two ministries with strong ideological hues, will be kept by the BJP, while its allies can get anywhere between five to eight cabinet berths.
The spokesperson said that Indian ambassador to Qatar Deepak Mittal had a meeting in the foreign office in which concerns were raised with regard to some offensive tweets by individuals in India denigrating the religious personality.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) will get a 'decisive mandate' in the Lok Sabha polls and may take even less than 48 hours to decide on its prime ministerial pick, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said on Thursday, asserting that it stands to reason that the party which gets the maximum seats in the alliance will be a 'natural claimant' for its leadership.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance was surging ahead in two southern states -- Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka -- while the respective blocs led by the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu and Congress in Kerala were on their way for another excellent show, going by the latest trends emerging from the counting of voted polled in the just concluded Lok Sabha polls.
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar appear to have got the maximum representation in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new council of ministers, while assembly poll-bound Maharashtra also found a significant presence.
The Vishwaguru who addressed the maximum rallies and boasted of being blessed with divine energy, who promised guarantees in his own name, turned out finally not invincible, points out Jyoti Punwani.
It will be in Modi's interest to reinvent his party, read the writing on the wall that voters wrote, and move ahead. He has little choice now. The country is watching, asserts Ramesh Menon.
The TDP leadership sees the hand of Prime Minister Narendra Modi behind the governor rejecting the ordinance. Member of Parliament CM Ramesh told this correspondent that the governor was acting like the "Centre's agent".
He said the CID team of lawyers have opposed both the bail petitions on the grounds of maintainability and made submissions on the merits of the matter.
The chief minister wondered why the prime minister could not even say he would do justice to AP by rectifying the mistakes.
Where do Vijay and his TVK expect to get their votes from? Vijay has a huge fan following among women, but will they automatically become his voters like they had done for MGR's AIADMK, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Along with Modi, senior BJP leaders including Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman and S Jaishankar, all ministers in Modi 2.0 Cabinet, took oath as cabinet ministers at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. In all, 71 ministers were sworn-in along with Modi, taking the strength of the Union council to 72.
The Rajya Sabha chairman was interacting with the MPs as part of his 'Mission Connect' during which he has been talking to a large number of parliamentarians as well as former presidents and prime ministers, present and former chief justices of India, governors and chief ministers, besides leaders of political parties.
Granting SCS to the state has been a long-pending demand of the JD-U supremo and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, whose Bihar cabinet had even passed a resolution last year requesting the Centre to grant SCS to the state.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies on Tuesday welcomed the Union Budget and said it focussed on youth, farmers, women, and has 'substantial allocations' for Maharashtra, but the opposition slammed the annual financial statement, claiming it neglected the western state and only seeks to please the saffron outfit's partners in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.
The Andhra CM charged the BJP and Centre with 'mud-slinging' and trying to 'damage his credibility'.
'If this had happened anywhere else, Indians would have been desperate to leave. But not in Israel.'
'After Chandrababu Naidu's arrest on Saturday, Pawan Sir's protest is not a random happening.'
Naidu visited the All India Institute of Medical Sciences to enquire about his former cabinet colleague's health.
The plan to relieve NSG from VIP security tasks has been in the making since 2012 when NSG commanders foresaw an event where simultaneous terror attacks could be witnessed at one time on multiple centres in the country and the commandos will have to be rushed in different directions.
If the concerns over risking political capital are overcome, the long-term gains for the Indian economy will be immense, asserts A K Bhattacharya.
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