The Congress won 77 seats or 42% of seats in the 2017 polls. How then can Gujarat be called a BJP bastion, asks Sanjeev Nayyar.
Will 'Bhaiyyaji', as Priyanka is called in UP, contest against Modi?
'Revival is happening slowly.' 'But that is, if the pandemic is controlled.'
'Imran Khan would only have spoken with the full awareness of Modi's complex political personality.' 'He has the great advantage of being privy to the confidential exchanges between then Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Modi during the latter's celebrated surprise visit to Lahore in December 2015 as well as the 'back channel' conversations between the national security advisors of the two countries,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The seat sharing formula reached between the BSP and SP is not on the basis of who emerged stronger in the previous election.
'Behind the BJP's anti-Congress crusade is an attempt to divert attention from the Ladakh standoff,' explains Amulya Ganguli.
'On one side you have the farmers of India and on the other side are few corporate families.' 'Unfortunately, those holding the levers of power today are more sympathetic towards these corporate families and helping them benefit at the cost of poor farmers.'
'The BJP will get the lion's share of the Opposition vote. I would give the Congress-Left around 15 per cent.'
Winning an election may be a breeze for the BJP but the aftermath of victory isn't always painless.
He is not good at thinking through laws and policies. His lockdown produced chaos and misery and didn't stop Covid. His GST finished off thousands of companies and reduced the amount of tax government collects to such an extent that he cannot pay state governments any more, observes Aakar Patel.
They will fawn over a prize catch who has brought a rich dowry of Gwalior-Chambal politicians. But in the end, all BJP members are prajas of Amit Shah and Narendra Modi, notes Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'I would like to express my anger at the way party affairs have been handled by some people.'
'Nitish Kumar was not happy about promoting R C P Singh as Union minister.'
'The government is doing away with crucial laws such as the Forest Conservation Act and the Environment Protection Act which had helped safeguard our forests.' 'The President has to show that she will stand in favour of tribal rights.'
More than India's alignment with the Quad, India's defence cooperation and partnership with the USA is of critical importance, notes Rup Narayan Das.
When almost the entire political class was engrossed in the Bihar polls, the Congress shahzada was holidaying in a hill station. As the Bihar contest and other by-elections have shown, a large number of states have become Congress-mukt, fulfilling the Hindutva brigade's dream, notes Amulya Ganguli.
'In China there is capital punishment for heritage theft. That is how they treat criminals, unlike us.' 'Here we treat them like it's a house-breaking theft.'
The inaugural Sangamam turned out to be a political Hindutva function than a gathering on the Hindu religion, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Have you seen a situation like this anywhere before, globally or in India, where a government says, okay, we are withdrawing a law because you don't want it?'
'The north east people are complaining, but the BJP is not listening to our voice.'
Abbas was a classmate and friend of Pankaj Modi, the youngest of the Modi siblings.
Left high and dry, the BJP has had no option but to go for the overkill with 800 rallies, including 20 by the prime minister. In the process, it may be overplaying its card, observes Amulya Ganguli.
'What she did so far and what she will do now is secondary; the most important thing is a person from the Adivasi community has reached the top-most position in the country.'
'The handling of the pandemic, under this totally constitutional and legal three-level dictatorship, has begun to show its downside,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
'I welcome Droupadi Murmu as the first Adivasi woman President of India, but her track record has not been good as a politician and governor of Jharkhand when it came to helping Adivasis,' points out activist Gladson Dungdung.
'The conception of Make-in-India, Skill India, Smart Cities, Digital India, Beti Bachao, Beti Padao and so on show a visionary breadth of mind, and Modi is almost the first political leader in India to put them into effect with single-minded zeal,' notes B S Raghavan, the former civil servant.
'Many already toe the line, those on the fence will be nudged to stand with the government even more, those who are critical will face trouble soon.'
'The Sena is always ready for any and every eventuality.'
That AAP managed a sizeable vote share in Gujarat is creditable. The BJP can no longer ignore AAP's growing presence in its strongest bastion, explains Ramesh Menon, long-time observer of Gujarat politics.
'I had emphasised this during our meeting with the PM.' 'Given our location, I had warned that there is a sensitivity involved as this is a frontier state.' 'The atmosphere around us is not conducive. But who listens?'
There will be uncertainty about outcomes,but one must hope for the best, observes T N Ninan.
'In the course of my interactions with him, Modi insisted that he does not believe charisma alone can sustain people's trust for long.' 'That is why Modi consistently refers to Mahatma Gandhi to contextualise his politics.' 'He believes in taking his ideas to the masses and getting their acceptance as an index of approval.'
A revealing excerpt from Ajay Singh's The Architect of the New BJP: How Narendra Modi Transformed the Party.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the revamped Vadnagar railway station where he sold tea during childhood and recalled those days, expressing a desire to visit the new-look facility.
In 2018, the BJP's rare successes in north-east India aside, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong for the party.
'He is a key fulcrum point in the pan-Indian creation of an effective Opposition to the BJP.'
'There is no senior bureaucracy functioning now; these people only obey.' 'This is only a command and control kind of governance.'
'The significance and timing of the PM's start of the campaign journey from Silchar is a clear message that the Barak valley is a priority in his scheme of things,' notes Subimal Bhattacharjee.
With its gaze steadily fixed on the well-being of its people, the government is going about taking all the imperative measures that need to be taken to beat back the pandemic, observes B S Raghavan.
Since 2014, India has left its moorings as a pluralist, modern, secular State because that is how the BJP wants it to be, notes Aakar Patel.
