Following the party's sweep of assembly elections in three Hindi heartland states against the odds, the BJP's brain trust is now busy game-planning as to how it can improve on its 2019 Lok Sabha election tally of 303 seats.
While members from Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Nagaland and Tripura are retiring on April 2, five members from Punjab are retiring on April 9.
I watched from my balcony and found that during the next eight hours up to 5.30 pm, not one prospective voter was seen to go to the Congress table, notes Rashme Sehgal. The rush was all around the BJP table.
In both the states, the Congress has conceded defeat, admitting that price rise may have been one of the major reasons for the drubbing.
The Punjab chief minister said he was asked by Kejriwal to visit different places for campaigning for INDIA bloc candidates.
The results will be seen as a virtual referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity after his demonetisation decision.
Navjot Singh Sidhu quit as the Punjab PCC chief, triggering other resignations and plunging the party into a fresh crisis just months ahead of the assembly elections.
Rediff.com's Priyanka narrates the different moods at the Bharatiya Janta Party's headquarters in New Delhi on election verdict day.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's unexpected announcement on Sunday that he will resign after two days drew mixed reactions from parties, with some saying it was a compulsion due to bail restrictions on his functioning and others hailing it as a right call to go back to the people.
A Bharatiya Janata Party MLA in Punjab was allegedly thrashed and his clothes torn by a group of farmers at Malout in Muktsar district on Saturday, police said.
Sidhu in his affidavit, filed along with the nomination papers, declared total assets worth Rs 44.63 crore.
Jain, 57, is the minister for health, power, home, PWD, industries, urban development, flood, irrigation and water in the Arvind Kejriwal-led government.
A beaming Amarinder Singh thanked the people of the state for their overwhelming support, saying he was committed to good governance and tackling the drug menace.
Glimpses from the campaign trail on Tuesday, February 8, 2022.
After taking charge at the state Congress headquarters, the cricketer-turned-politician said there was no difference between an ordinary worker of the party and its state unit chief.
While Azad, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, has been made in charge of Uttar Pradesh, Nath will look after Punjab and Haryana, party General Secretary Janaradan Dwivedi said.
Sukhbir declared that there will be no political vendetta against the former chief minister and his colleagues, but if complaints are received they will certainly be looked into.
Clearly, her father hopes that a successful tenure in Lahore will give Maryam the ballast to be prime minister after the next general election.
We used to hear of the Modi-Shah pair as the hyphenated top of the BJP leadership. Lately, the hyphen has disappeared and it is only Modi at the top. Yogi Adityanath gets honourable mentions, but he is still a good distance away from being anointed a worthy successor, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said the party will go into the Punjab assembly polls with a CM face and the decision on it will be taken soon after consulting party workers.
The marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha ended on Saturday with the seventh phase of elections witnessing an approximate voter turnout of 62.36 per cent, amid clashes between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters in Sandeshkhali and some other parts of West Bengal.
The gangster-politician was booked in 65 criminal cases ranging from murder to extortion and was elected an MLA five times on the tickets of different political parties.
'He only promotes those leaders who will never show any resistance to him in future.'
The result is a big blow to the military establishment, revealing the limits of 'political engineering'. It reflected the anger of the electorate, especially its younger voters, who have spoken decisively against the persistent harassment and victimisation of Imran Khan's political party, asserts Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in the assembly polls on Thursday has put the party on a stronger wicket for the election for the post of President expected later this year.
Party will decide when the time was right to pass on the baton to Rahul Gandhi, says senior Congress leader Ambika Soni.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday thanked the people for helping the Aam Aadmi Party "breach the BJP's fortress" in Gujarat and asserted that the party would win the state the next time.
Ruling Shiromani Akali Dal and Congress won one seat each in the bypolls to Patiala (urban) and Talwandi Sabo Assembly seats on Monday but the Aam Aadmi Party finished a poor third.
A land-owning class, the Jats are a powerful community and account for 28 per cent of Haryana's population. The time, they believe, has now come for them to take revenge.
The ruling Aam Aadmi Party on Monday said it has put the ball in Bharatiya Janata Party's court by demanding early elections in Delhi in November, and now it is up to the opposition party to decide whether it was prepared to face CM Arvind Kejriwal.
Amid the ongoing crisis within the Congress in Punjab, its national spokesperson Supriya Shrinate on Friday expressed the hope that its leaders "talk more in private and less in public."
If Kejriwal is arrested, it will take very little for Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena to summon a meeting of the assembly, direct it to elect a new leader of the House, and, if it doesn't, dissolve it and impose President's Rule, predicts Aditi Phadnis.
Dominic Xavier offers his take on these quaint developments.
5 states that contribute just under a fifth of the Lok Sabha's seats will go to the polls early this year.
Sukhbir Badal also announced the candidature of his 94-year-old father and five-time state Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal from the Lambi assembly seat.
Sonia would address political rallies in Jandiala or Beas, Tarn Taran or Amritsar, Phagwara, Sarhind and at some place in western Malwa
Political analysts say the road to the 2024 polls for the Congress is going to get tougher as it is a party that is 'in the ICU' and cannot be revived with quick-fix solutions.
'The terrorists are using better technology to secure their communication.' 'It does appear that excessive reliance on technology led to a weakening of human intelligence.'
Well ahead of the November 12 assembly elections, the BJP projected Thakur as the next chief minister.
Creating a positive reform that does away with an official who constitutes a flawed aspect of Indian democracy will allow the BJP to rightfully claim this as one of its positive legacies, suggests Karan P Shah.
