'When the Congress is put against someone like Narendra Modi, they do not have anything new to offer to the people of India.'
'Our movement was not about putting any flag on the Red Fort, but it is to secure our livelihood.'
'On January 22, when the last round of talks took place, the farmer leaders were told by Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar that the government is also prepared.' 'And they did this.'
'BJP takes Lingayat support and later on they throw them out, ditch them and humiliate them.' After months of speculation Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa resigned from the chief minister's post. A powerful Lingayat community leader, Yediyurappa could not even complete his term, owing to the internal politics of the Bharatiya Janata Party. So how does Lingayat community view his exit? Congress working president, Karnataka state and Lingayat leader Eshwar Khandre speaking to Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com, said, "The community which voted him and felt that they will lead the government are now disenchanted."
'Gaumutra kills all bacteria,' says the Congress corporator from Mumbai, who wants cow urine to clean the city's hospitals.
'I should not have lifted my hand, but whoever eats the meat of a cow, whom we Hindus consider our mother, these things will happen.'
Less than half the ministers in Team Yogi are not long-term BJP members. Many old-timers have been dropped.
'Use of the word 'genocide' for Kashmiri Pandits is absolutely wrong.'
'I am happy Sanjay Raut and Sharad Pawar changed the game of Maharashtra politics.'
Mumbai top cop Rakesh Maria's trusted man Dinesh Kadam also helped crack the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts' case, sent Abu Salem to jail and helped bust the Indian Mujahideen terror network in Mumbai.
'Oh god, these workers will now spread the virus! Their only concern was to think about themselves.' 'The middle class was only concerned with flattening the curve of coronavirus and they were not bothered about how these workers live in one room with 10 people or 20 people.'
'Priyanka did draw huge crowds and eventually all of those ended up voting for the Samajwadi Party.' 'The voters today are smart enough to vote for the party which they know is going to win or they know this party will come second, but no way will they vote for a party which will come third or fourth.'
'You need a leader whom India can identify with and I cannot think of any other leader except Sachin Pilot in the Congress party.'
'The decision to supply free food grains is not an economically sound decision because the government will find it very difficult in future to charge anything for food grains.'
'If Mayawati had performed better, then the BJP would have had a much tougher time to win UP.' 'The present gap in number of seats between the BJP and SP would have got reduced.'
Glimpses of the CWC meeting, which was meant to formulate a plan to revive the party from the death throes of electoral irrelevance, but...
'We cannot afford to be complacent about our food security needs.'
'Had the Congress made Sidhu its CM face, they would have won 80 out of 117 seats.'
'They want to wind up Osho's Pune operation, take the money and move out of India.'
'Putin has set aside all the rules and now he is deciding the rules.'
'The government is saying that essential commodities are exempted, but on the ground there is no competent officer from the government who can say which is an essential commodity and which is not.'
'Right now, only religious groups of Hindus and Muslims are working on the ground.' 'The government is missing.'
'Shraddha tries hard to rescue the film, but the script totters so badly in the second half that any salvage seems impossible,' says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
Newly-elected CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury speaks to Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com.
An unemployed migrant becomes a much sought after Baba right before Syed Firdaus Ashraf's eyes.
'They were certainly not practising Hinduism in the Harappan culture (which includes Mohenjo Daro and other sites).' 'There was no notion of Hinduism then.'
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.
From July 27, 2017, says Syed Firdaus Ashraf, my daughter will have to learn that there are only two most important things in life: Power and money.
'One cannot avoid speculating whether there was something else at play that led to the uncovering of this saga.'
But for the PM's decision, my teenage daughter, a child of the post-economic reforms generation, could never have imagined the Socialist India that remains so much a part of my growing up years, says Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'You need to have enough funds to maintain the primacy of public transport and it should not suffer because of lack of funds.'
'A political party taking the law into its hands is objectionable, especially in the context of the 2002 incidents in Gujarat.'
'The message they want to send to the country is that they can do anything by hook or crook'
'In politics, not everything is spoken and there are a lot of messaging done very discreetly.'
She could not believe how much India had changed since the last time she experienced it first hand.
'When the Babri Masjid was demolished, we didn't take permission from anyone.'
The entire campaign in Lucknow is based on Narendra Modi -- there is little mention of the BJP candidate, a certain Rajnath Singh. Some locals wonder, 'Rajnathji is not coming to campaign in Lucknow. How will he take care of this city after he wins?' Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com reports from Lucknow.
'The second Covid wave spread due to the irresponsibility of the Election Commission of India and now they are committing the same mistake.'
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