'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.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Friday sought to quell the suggestions of its rift with the Bharatiya Janata Party and that Mohan Bhagwat's recent critical references related to the Lok Sabha polls were aimed at the ruling party, insisting that such claims are just speculation meant to create confusion.
According to the confession statement of Radha Kishan Rao, 'Peddayana' was very angry for not completing the work as per his expectation.
Occasional lovers' tiffs have marked the history of RSS-BJP relations. To think that Nagpur will bring about any change in leadership is a misreading of both its intent and its power, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Another instance of bridge collapse came to the fore in Bihar on Thursday, making it the 10th such incident to have been reported from the state in just over a fortnight, an official said.
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
What may work for the BJP is the growing resentment against V K Pandian, a bureaucrat-turned-politician who Jay Panda alleges has hijacked the Odisha government.
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
Pawar is expected to play a crucial role in deciding the future course or action of the opposition alliance.
A Division Bench headed by Chief Justice K Vinod Chandran passed the order on a bunch of petitions which had opposed the legislations brought by the Nitish Kumar government in November 2023.
The cancellation of UGC-NET, amid the raging row over NEET, led to questions being raised over National Testing Agency's (NTA) capability to conduct exams of larger magnitude.
The BJP attacked Kejriwal after he refused to comment on the Maliwal "assault" matter during a press conference in Lucknow. He was flanked by Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav and AAP Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh.
The electoral battle in Varanasi, according to locals and political experts, is not about whether the PM will win for a third successive occasion, but if he will increase his share of the votes polled and his win margin.
While the north district will get 346 Closed Circuit Television cameras, the central district will be allotted 354 cameras, officials said.
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.
Those joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers for the first time include three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
The immediate challenge for the Centre and the home ministry is to ensure the conduct of assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir and restoration of its statehood.
There was much speculation on a likely meeting between Bhagwat and Adityanath, especially in the backdrop of the BJP's recent electoral reverses in Uttar Pradesh.
Eighteen people were killed and 19 injured when a double-decker sleeper bus headed for Delhi hit a milk tanker on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway in Unnao on Wednesday, officials said.
Modi will stay in Patna overnight after the road show and address election meetings on May 13 in three Lok Sabha constituencies: Hajipur, Vaishali and Saran.
Celebrations had already begun at BJP headquarters before the full announcement of results.
'They have been found wanting in taking stern measures to stop this because the Constitution has given them this authority and the power to ensure a free and fair election in the country.'
Delhi Water Minister Atishi ended her indefinite fast over the water scarcity in the national capital after she was hospitalised early Tuesday, Aam Aadmi Party Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said.
As many as 37 ministers have been dropped from the government in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's third term and these include seven with cabinet rank -- prominent among them being Smriti Irani, Anurag Thakur and Narayan Rane.
'Someone who cannot even take his cabinet into confidence, how will he take the NDA alliance into confidence?'
Former Karnataka chief minister S M Krishna, noted industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla and famous playback singer Suman Kalyanpur were given Padma awards by President Droupadi Murmu at a ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Wednesday.
With the strain and anxiety of the longest Lok Sabha polls now behind the leaders, governance, with consensus, is the next step.
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.
Twelve people, including three of a family, were killed and six injured in heavy overnight rains that triggered flooding and house collapse as several rivers swelled in Uttarakhand, officials said on Thursday.
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 59-year-old Vikram Misri assumed charge of the key position at a time India is looking to navigate various geo-political challenges, including its frosty ties with China following the lingering eastern Ladakh border row and the consequences of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
A man hanged himself allegedly over the delay by the police in probing the gang-rape of his 15-year-old daughter. A station house officer and another policeman were suspended on Tuesday, the police said.
Kumar is reported to have made the Rajya Sabha remark during an informal chat with some journalists who had asked him about his recent tour of areas falling under the now abolished Barh Lok Sabha constituency which he had represented many times.
Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) MPs, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, staged a protest in Parliament premises on Wednesday over the alleged discrimination against opposition-ruled states in the Union Budget.
He will be around for another crack at the elections, and a clear majority, predicts Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
The BJP has fielded 18 MPs, including four Union ministers, for the latest round of assembly polls so far -- seven each in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and four in Chhattisgarh.
Politely decline to be prime minister, and hand the baton to someone else in the BJP -- like Sonia did to Manmohan Singh -- advises Krishna Prasad.
The Congress has not released a poll manifesto but a declaration of appeasement.
'Lalu is Lalu. His presence in the election campaign will make a difference for the Mahagathbandhan.'
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