'Is Rahul turning the Congress' covert soft-Hindutva support into overt support now?' 'And if so, following in the BJP's footsteps, is the Congress going to abandon Indian Muslims and Muslim causes altogether?' asks Dr Najid Hussain whose father-in-law former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was killed during the Gujarat riots.
'Hindutva doesn't teach you to stab someone in the back.'
We present our alphabet of 2020, pulling in everything you'll remember about this year we'd rather forget.
By pegging the exact area of the Babri Masjid site at 0.313 acres, and not the original 2.77 acres, the government hopes to be in line with the court ruling in the 1994 Ismail Faruqui case which mentions return of land to original claimants once the exact area needed for acquisition is determined, observes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
Amid a slew of meetings with Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Sunday said it would not interfere in the functioning of the BJP-led government at the Centre, dismissing suggestions that it was running the party through 'remote control'.
Hitting back at Bharatiya Janata Party Chief Amit Shah after he needled her on desertions in the Bahujan Samaj Party, former chief minister Mayawati on Sunday said his "childish" remarks betrayed BJP's nervousness ahead of assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.
Congress legislators spent the whole night inside the Karnataka Legislative Assembly and Council, escalating demand for the dismissal of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister K S Eshwarappa over his statement regarding the national flag.
'These people are not concerned about Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian -- they are only concerned about being in power,' Akhilesh Yadav tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih in his first interview after the election results.
'This is an emotional issue and cannot be resolved by law alone.' 'This can be resolved only by creating trust again.' 'So much bloodletting has taken place, there is no point in going on and on.' 'Let us sit together and negotiate'
'After meeting the prime minister and Amit Shah, Yogi has come out with his position secure till the assembly election.'
The ultimate consequences of Rahul Gandhi's yatra may be known only in 2024, points out Dr Sudhir Bisht.
'The JD-U and RLSP will have to listen to whatever Amit Shah says.' 'The BJP has so much power that he will snub either of the two parties.'
'People, who think Sunny Leone comes with baggage, are all humbug. She has made people look at the porn industry with a lot of respect.' Gautami Kapoor on husband Ram Kapoor, Sunny Leone, and her new TV show, Tere Sheher Mein.
'Educated Muslim women overwhelmingly voted for me because of Modiji's stand on triple talaq.'
Syed Firdaus Ashraf traces the trajectory of Lal Kishan Advani from the highs of the 1990s to the present, when he may have to watch the elections from the sidelines.
It is not much of an issue just now, but it could become one if the idea of caste census captures socio-political imagination, going beyond electoral tags and identities, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Just as the monkey god needed a Jambavan to prod him into realising his superpowers, so did the poll panel need a poke from the Supreme Court into remembering it had an armoury of powers at its disposal to stop the infractions,' notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
Justice Misra, 63, has been a part of several key verdicts.
Empowerment of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) with extra territorial jurisdiction and declaration of Maulana Masood Azhar, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi and Dawood Ibrahim as terrorists after legislative amendment were counted among its achievements by the MHA, headed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
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.
Iqbal Ansari, one of the main plaintiffs who fought for the right of the community over the disputed land, says Muslims in Ayodhya won't be satisfied if the Sunni Waqf Board accepts the five acres in Dhannipur.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah told Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and workers here on Friday that they must focus on polling booths if they want the party to win the coming assembly polls.
From the kind of food to the art which will be displayed at the museum, historian Pushpesh Pant shares his vision.
Narendra Modi seems to prefer that Hindu strongman image remain tucked in reserve, to only come when called; life's been more complicated.
Congress-NCP-Sena leaders discount reading too much into the meeting between the Maharashtra CM and prime minister.
'Cultural nationalism or the victim card that you play is okay when people are well fed.' 'But if you are not well fed, then it puts a question mark (on your leadership).'
Rohith Vemula's suicide exposes all of us as a nation, argues Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
The outcome in UP is far more significant than in the other states going to the polls next year. An unlikely setback in UP can cramp the Modi government, virtually making it a lame-duck two years ahead of the 2024 parliamentary poll, observes Virendra Kapoor.
'In a democracy, how can you be scared of Amit Shah?'
The Narendra Modi wave seems to have reached the Bengal shores, indicated by the more than two-fold increase in the membership of the Bharatiya Janata Party's state unit.
While Modi had a party and an organisation that supported him, all Mulayam, a self-made man with no inheritance in politics, had was a set of (fairly flexible) beliefs.
School dropout Mahashay Dharampal Gulati, famously known as 'MDH Dadaji' for repeated appearance in his spice brand's television ads, started his spices business journey in a nondescript shack in Delhi's Karol Bagh after selling his tonga, and went on, at the age of 94, to becoming the highest-paid CEO in the country's FMCG sector.
But his opponents are making a mistake. They shouldn't be smug, argues Vir Sanghvi.
'Mamata is an emotional person, she follows her heart.' 'We loved that Didi, we still love her, but she is a changed person.' 'Why and how the change happened, who is responsible, I can't say.'
As the Aam Aadmi Party heads for a resounding win in Delhi, Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf lists the reasons behind Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's triumph.
The end of the train which hit the wall suffered damage and a portion of the wall collapsed, suggesting that the collision was quite intense.
The hot money may be on the Aam Aadmi Party winning the Delhi assembly elections, but the Bharatiya Janata Party is not giving up the battle without a fight.
'We have finished that fear.'
Handing the Human Resource Development ministry to a first-time minister and the talk of repealing Article 370 may be signs that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh are working in tandem
A magnificent Krishna Janambhoomi temple in Mathura was a recurrent theme for the ruling BJP in the run-up to the assembly polls, reports Nitin Kumar.
