Exigencies of electoral politics and individual ambitions often stoke family feuds and sibling rivalries.
Modi has proven to be a past master in the art of political survival. This means that learning to navigate the choppy waters of coalition government will be an art he will not take long to master, argues Shyam Parekh.
AAP is working on its new strategy to build a strong organisational set-up with leaders from all sections of society, reports Nitin Kumar.
While the Aam Aadmi Party is contesting on four seats, the Congress has fielded candidates for the remaining three seats.
As Election 2024 hurtles towards result day in a medley of mangalsutra, mujra, mutton, machli and other barbs, these may sound like character names from Hindi comics of yore. Instead, these are the mocking, sometimes vicious monikers given by political rivals to each other.
Majority of these constituencies are in Uttar Pradesh and the party that is on the third slot even as the counting is still underway on several seats is the Bahujan Samaj Party, a party neither with the National Democratic Alliance nor the opposition INDIA bloc.
Radical Sikh preacher and Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh's brother Harpreet Singh has been apprehended by Jalandhar police in a drug case, a senior police official said on Friday.
The response was tepid in other parts of the country even as several INDIA bloc parties as well as other non-BJP outfits extended their support to the bandh.
As a consequence of prominence given to the brutality during those few days, a very important aspect of that episode got almost glossed over. This was the intervention by a very significant section of people who restored faith in humanity, and conveyed the message that only a small section of Indians, that too politically backed, were consumed by anti-Sikh majoritarianism. The overlooked facet of the events of 1984 was the story of significant sections of the city's populace, public figures and nondescript ones, stepping out hand-in-hand, to first stand with little but bravery in hands, in the way of attackers, and thereafter to provide immediate relief to those who lives were uprooted and who lost family members in the violence, recalls Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
A fierce competition among parties to offer freebies and guarantees, a scramble for tribal, OBC, women votes and a touch of Hindutva -- all have combined to make the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls a high-stakes battle with main rivals BJP and the Congress pulling out all the stops to gain power.
Polling was by and large peaceful in the bypolls for three Lok Sabha and seven assembly seats spread across five states and Delhi on Thursday barring an incident of stabbing of a policeman in Tripura, where polling was the highest at 76.62 per cent.
Counting of votes for the bypolls in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand will be taken up on Sunday.
After many years, intricate caste calculations will dominate politics in Punjab.
'Rahul Gandhi is going to turn 54 and in India political leaders peak when they are around 60.' 'This 'bhai-behen ki jodi' has done a wonderful job for the Congress.' 'Priyanka Gandhi was a very effective campaigner.'
Mann also asked the vigilance bureau to investigate the wealth amassed by the police officer through alleged "drug money".
In spite of his trying hard he is unable to connect not only with ordinary voters but with most party colleagues as well, observes Virendra Kapoor.
The Delhi chief minister also asked people to vote in the coming Lok Sabha polls to elect an MP, not the prime minister, saying the MP would "work for you during tough times".
Congress leaders are now in a "wait and watch" mode over the possible ripple effect of Punjab developments in faction-ridden Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the only two states other than Punjab where the party is in power on its own.
Several candidates, including Taranjit Singh Sandhu, the BJP's Amritsar candidate, are promising resumption of India-Pakistan trade via the Attari-Wagah land route.
Is it is necessary to play divisive politics to succeed in the next general elections? asks Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Goel's tenure was till December 5, 2027, and he would have become Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) after incumbent Rajiv Kumar retired in February next year.
Mann, 48, is a two-time MP from Sangrur and is the party's state unit chief.
The AAP national convenor is out on an interim bail till June 1. He has to surrender on June 2.
The stakes are significant for the BJP in this round as the party had in 2019 won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, that will go to polls on May 7.
The Congress said the rally by the INDIA will send a "strong message" to the Lok Kalyan Marg, where the prime minister's residence is located, that the BJP-led government's "time is up".
The BJP's vote share in Punjab has been declining -- 8.21 per cent in 2007 to 7.13 per cent in 2012, and finally to 5.4 per cent in 2017, when it won just three of 23 seats the party contested. So doing an election deal with Amarinder and a political formation he might float in the future is not inconceivable.
'2019 was fought on delivery. But in 2024, you can see the before and after effects.'
This election will decide in what shape and form the Akali Dal will survive.
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.
Sources within the Congress, including those who have been members of the teams that drafted its 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha poll manifestos, said the Karnataka government decision lacked any empirical basis.
The CISF, tasked with providing security at airports, has also ordered a court of inquiry into the incident.
Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar's remarks on Pakistan sparked a political row on Friday, with his party quick to dissociate itself from the comments while the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party latched on to them, accusing the Congress of being an apologist for Pakistan and the terrorism emanating from its soil.
Addressing a press conference, Pawar said the trends of the assembly polls (in five states set to be held in November) suggest the situation is favourable for the opposition, but added he had no authentic information to comment on whether there would be a change (in government) at the national level.
Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Manoj Sonkar on Tuesday defeated Aam Aadmi Party's Kuldeep Kumar to win the post of mayor in the Chandigarh mayoral polls.
The committee, of which Mukul Wasnik is the convener and has former chief ministers Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel as well as Mohan Prakash and Salman Khurshid in it, held final talks and suggested the way forward to the party leadership.
The prospect of the Delhi chief minister's wife, Sunita Kejriwal, who has so far maintained a distance from politics, assuming a new role is also being discussed by people.
Wordsmiths and artists of different parties are working overtime to deliver punches and counter punches in their bid to reach out to voters through different platforms ranging from Facebook to YouTube.
Names of Rajya Sabha MPs Harbhajan Singh and Swati Maliwal are missing from the list.
The Congress may stand a better chance in the assembly polls if it followed the 'Himachal model', suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP believes that the only party still capable of leading a credible challenge against it is the Congress. Please note how BJP campaigners in states where the Congress may count for a cipher or thereabouts, mostly attack the Congress, observes Shekhar Gupta.
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