Celebrations erupted across Assam with opponents of the bill bursting crackers, distributing sweets and breaking into frenzied dancing on the streets.
'New Delhi's rulers should be alert to lighting a dangerous tinderbox,' warns Sunil Sethi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party president Amit Shah and chief ministers of National Democratic Alliance-ruled States are at the ceremony.
In the wake of IPS officer D G Vanzara's explosive letter indicting Chief Minister Narendra Modi over encounter cases, a Gujarat-based NGO has demanded his arrest and imposition of President's rule in the state.
Just as the superstars of Indian cricket only play IPL and international fixtures and ignore the Ranji and Mushtaq Ali trophies in domestic cricket, Narendra Modi should play a very limited role in state assembly elections, argues Sudhir Bisht.
Some of the reaction to India's bombing on Pak terror camps.
'Sachin Pilot had every legitimate right to demand to become CM.'
To understand Modi, listen to what he does not say -- vide NRC, suggests Prem Panicker.
For months, there has been talk that Narendra Damodardas Modi and Ajay Mohan Bisht, aka Yogi Adityanath, don't get along.
'What should surprise BJP supporters is Modi's call for 'stability' at the manifesto launch, a theme that he and his team members had not touched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019.' 'The last time the party called for 'stability at the Centre' was in 1998 and 1999,' recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
The best-case scenario is that the BJP will top out at around 50 seats in UP -- a drop of 12 from the 62 it had won in 2019. Taken in tandem with Maharashtra and Karnataka, this is what is likely to put paid to the BJP's ambitions of a third term for Modi, argues Prem Panicker.
'Commentators have said that dealing with allies as equals will make Modi more sensitive.' 'Remember that the people Modi is dealing with are equally autocratic in their own lairs.' 'Further, Modi always has handy the threat of dissolving Parliament and calling for fresh polls.' 'Most of his own party, and certainly his allies and opponents having blown their budgets of efforts and resources in the just concluded elections, have no stomach for this.' 'They are all greatly looking forward to the loaves and fishes of office on offer.' 'That gives Modi an unbeatable advantage in any push-comes-to-shove situation,' explains Shreekant Sambrani.
'Let Modi not be in the news, I will stop making cartoons on him.'
Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's task is to live down the hype and address the nitty-gritty, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
Indeed, if you look at this hypothesis with sufficiently jaundiced eyes, you will find plenty in common in the way 'Team India' conducts its affairs and the way 'Team Modi' does, argues Krishna Prasad.
'This is a fascinating side to Sonia Gandhi, the way she disarms her opponents.'
Congress charged the entire BJP and the government with "aiding and abetting" Lalit Modi, a fugitive.
All you need to know about the MP who became a trending topic on Twitter.
Much depends on the BJP's electoral performance in next year's assembly elections. If the party fares well in UP and some states like Goa and Gujarat, it will be able to fob off the attempt at a reappraisal of its Hindutva doctrine, observes Amulya Ganguli.
The Raj Thackeray-led Maharashra Navnirman Sena deteriorated thanks to its own doing and absolute lack of vision. Now it seems it is only a matter of time before the Shiv Sena goes the same way. Both cousins will ensure they finish the 'Sena', says N Suresh.
Rulers in New Delhi and their political aides in sensitive states like Tamil Nadu have to be doubly careful not to provoke a situation whose consequences may be much more than visible now to the naked eye, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Narendra Modi "does not deserve" to be BJP's PM candidate if the Cobrapost claim on illegal spying on a woman architect in Gujarat in 2009 are found to be correct, Congress women leaders said today demanding an inquiry into the issue by a Supreme Court judge.
Former chief minister of Goa and Congress veteran Luizinho Faleiro, resigned as an MLA and a primary member of the party on Monday claiming the state party unit is run by a 'coterie' of leaders even as he praised Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee saying the country needs a leader like her to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"I fully support the surgical strikes and I have said so unequivocally, but I will not support using the Indian Army in political posters and propaganda all across the country," the Congress vice president said in a series of tweets.
Gujarat was among the earliest civilisations in the sub-continent, dating back four millennia.
The Congress chief gave 'F' to the Modi government for agriculture, foreign policy and job creation, and 'A+' to the prime minister for slogan creation and self promotion.
'He was always opposed to a form of nationalism that was narrow, selfish and arrogant.' 'He will always remain a beacon of inspiration for freedom-loving people across the world and for movements of resistance against oppressive State power.'
The BJP distanced itself from her statement saying it did not agree with her, as "Mahatma Gandhi's killer cannot be a patriot".
The 61-year-old feisty leader, who had single-handedly wrecked the red bastion in West Bengal in 2011, was unfazed by the Left-Congress alliance ahead of the assembly polls.
All the BJP's present leaders from UP put together cannot win the state for the party. So how about an out-of-the-box leader like Subramanian Swamy, asks Nazarwala, the man who called right the 2007 and 2012 UP elections.
Differences in United Progressive Alliance over the issue of an inquiry into 'snoopgate' allegedly involving Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi came to the fore with the Nationalist Congress Party and National Conference opposing such a probe at this juncture.
'At this moment, the Trinamool has an edge.'
Why the prime minister's legacy will depend on how he governs, not the number of state elections he fights as personality contests, says Shekhar Gupta.
'He was No 2 to Laloo Prasad in the last government and he will be No 2 in the new one as well, not to Sushil Modi, but to the other Modi in Delhi.' 'In the process, Nitish Kumar will have to forget any role which he may have secretly entertained about playing a larger role on the national stage,' says Amulya Ganguli.
'The win in Assam is likely to have a ripple effect in other north-eastern states like Manipur and Nagaland which have been reluctant to embrace the BJP in the past,' says Nitin A Gokhale, the distinguished commentator on strategic affairs, who lived and reported from Assam between 1983 and 2006.
The Modi-Shah definition of secularism is, India is a confident, resurgent Hindu, and therefore secular, country.
The resurgence that Congressmen feel is in fact more sentimental than substantive. The substantive reality is that the Congress is a party in terminal decline since 1989, says Shekhar Gupta.
Top opposition leaders including Rahul Gandhi and Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday agreed to work together to prepare a common minimum programme.
150 BJP elected local representatives in Beed resign in protest against Pritam Munde's exclusion from the Union ministry.
'Where they lose, you never ask why they failed there, like in Bihar and Punjab.' 'You are stuck on the UP victory, thinking they have the mandate to rule for all times to come.' 'The BJP has 282 MPs, but can I honestly say that the BJP is the party for everyone?'
