'Islam is the oldest religion among all religions. India is the best country for Hindi Muslims'
'What was said about Muslims was the most important part of the three-day RSS 'seminar'.'
The Congress slammed Ravi Shankar Prasad, accusing him of distorting, twisting and lying "with a straight face".
The prime minister has been unstoppable as he transported the BJP to colossal success on a wave of muscular nationalism, majoritarian pride and charisma.
The BJP took a dig at Gandhi, saying the Congress vice president was visiting temples as his party has failed to win elections in the state for long time.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday termed the cancellation of over 25,000 school jobs as 'gross injustice' and alleged that it was a ploy by the Bharatiya Janata Party to stop these job losers from being deployed in poll duty.
Modi's gestures have fuelled speculations that the BJP wants to bring Yediyurappa into the centre-stage of its campaign plank leveraging his mass appeal for the Assembly elections, due by May.
Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah are considered front-runners for the chief minister's post in the event of Congress coming to power after assembly elections, due in April-May next year.
The longest-serving Bharatiya Janata Party chief minister and popularly known as mama (maternal uncle) and 'paon-paon wale bhaiya' (foot soldier), Shivraj Singh Chouhan has emerged as the hero of his party's stunning victory in the state assembly elections.
'On the one hand it will appeal to pan-Hindu sentiment and on the other opposition to it could well strengthen support for the BJP among Hindu voters.'
He said the government had examined the video recording of the February 28 condolence meeting of slain Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Arun Mahaur, where Minister of State for Human Resource Development Ram Shankar Katheria had participated.
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.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government of being 'undemocratic', and said people will have to strongly fight against its 'dictatorship' to save democracy.
Modi believes that the Congress leadership does not have the political sagacity to undertake a course correction because of its preoccupation about not losing its current gains in the voter base, observes Shekhar Iyer.
Stepping up his offensive, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday hit out at BJP's ideological mentor, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh saying its belief was "murdering" individuality and that thought process is now running the country in which only one man knows everything from farmers to clothes.
Mohan Bhagwat said the temple would be constructed in the same grandeur as it existed before, using the "same stones" under the guidance of those who were the flag-bearers of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement for the last 25 years.
'A democracy cannot mean the rule of just two people,' said one audience member, who recalled that he too had chanted 'Modi, Modi' when the PM had visited the USA. Many of those gathered admitted to having been Modi supporters. What had changed them was the growing concentration of power. Jyoti Punwani reports from New York.
'Let reservations be decided on the basis of the economic status of a family or person.' 'Give 30 per cent reservations to those whose yearly income is below Rs 200,000, and the remaining 19 per cent to those whose family's annual income is between Rs 200,000 and Rs 400,000.'
Kerala Minister Saji Cheriyan on Tuesday landed in trouble for his harsh remarks against the Constitution, triggering a huge political row in the state with the opposition demanding for his sacking, but the Left leader later expressed regret and claimed news reports in this connection were 'distorted'.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind chief Maulana Arshad Madani on Sunday stoked a controversy when he claimed that "Om" and "Allah" were the same God worshipped by 'Manu'.
If Rahul's yatra makes a political statement from the other side of the aisle and Shah Rukh's success underlines a more relaxed popular mood, Mr Modi and Mr Bhagwat's cues to their followers are coming from another place, observes Shekhar Gupta.
The soul of India resides in pluralism and tolerance. This plurality of our society has come through assimilation of ideas over centuries. Secularism and inclusion are a matter of faith for us. It is our composite culture which makes us into one nation.
As part of the efforts to bring several opposition parties together on a common platform to defeat the BJP in 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Pawar met Kharge on Thursday evening.
The writers, artistes, thinkers and academics had gathered for a "resistance" meet (Pratirodh) against what they described as "attack on reason, democracy and composite culture".
'Was there an element of orchestration between Mukherjee and Mohan Bhagwat about their speeches to the effect that the former would leave out any reference to Muslims while the RSS chief will not talk about a Hindu rashtra?' asks Amulya Ganguli.
'Under the more strident Modi version of Hindutva, Nehru has almost become a contemporary political figure.' 'The ruling party knows that without total erasure and distortion of Nehru, their fantasies will always be wobbly.'
If he doesn't win next year, it will set back the party's prospects in 2024. If he wins, it will be seen as his win as much as the BJP high command's, points out Shekhar Gupta.
The event brings to fruition the Bharatiya Janata Party's 'mandir' movement that defined its politics for three decades and took it to the heights of power.
None of them had anything to do with the violence at Bhima Koregaon, where they were not even present, points out Aakar Patel.
Bhagwat presented Sangh's views on a number of contentious issue while answering wide-ranging written questions on the last day of the three-day conclave, including on matters like inter-caste marriages, education policy, crimes against women, cow vigilantism.
"Why did you file (the chargesheet) without approval? You don't have a legal department," the court said.
The manner in which a large proportion of common people have mortgaged their rationality and questioning spirit to let hatred, prejudice, and bigotry take over their minds is a cause of worry, observes Mohammad Sajjad.
"Even when Vajpayee is ill in hospital, I was the first one to visit him, since the Congress believes he has contributed to the country," he said.
After a marathon discussion lasting nine hours, the motion was defeated with 87 members opposing it and 40 supporting in the 140-member house with two vacancies.
'...if elections were to be held today.' 'The problem is Akhilesh is not very aggressive.' 'Had he started his campaign aggressively six months ago, the picture in UP would have been very different.'
The scale and nature of Modi's election victory mean the higher tiers of the Sangh Parivar feel no need for restraint, says Sreenivasan Jain
Police cited statements of various witnesses in its chargesheet to state that Kumar was walking along with the protesters where a number of unidentified persons were raising slogans during an event in the university's campus on February 9, 2016, to commemorate the hanging of Parliament-attack mastermind Afzal Guru.
'They call us Punjabis as nashedi (drug addicts). So I also asked him with a smile, 'aaj aap kaunsa kar ke aaye hain (what did you take today). He failed to realise my gesture but only saw me smiling,' Akali leader and Union minister Harsimrat Kaur said.
'The Babri Masjid demolition was a pre-planned conspiracy.' 'It did not happen on the spur of the moment.'
'There is nothing like the Sangh agenda or the BJP agenda... we believe only in the Nation's Agenda,' says newly appointed BJP Vice-President Vinay Sahasrabuddhe.
