The BJP wants to win a state where it has been out of power for 15 years. The Congress wants to make its mark in a state where it has been a bit player for nearly 30 years. And the BSP wants to recapture power it lost 5 years ago.
'Why is the entire Cabinet running around in Bangalore?' 'Why are they making arrangements for horse-trading?' 'Is this not the BJP's greed for power?' 'They have won the entire country. Why are they so desperate for Karnataka?'
Defying prohibitory orders, protests were held in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and several other cities. Protesters, mostly students and activists, were detained on a large scale in national capital and other places.
The extended Winter session of Parliament got off a stormy start on Wednesday with uproar over the Telangana and caste-reservation issue stalling proceedings.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said the government is ready for a discussion on the issue of alleged financial irregularities in the banking sector and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will reply to the debate.
The party will need organisation, preparation, funding and ideological clarity, says Aditi Phadnis
To elect, or re-elect a chief minister, the AIADMK needs to call only the MLAs for a meeting. But to elect a new general secretary, it would have to conduct direct elections with all registered cadres participating and voting. And that is just the beginning of its problems, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Though the list of superstitious beliefs is long, often dissolving distinctions of class, caste, religion and education, Karnataka's anti-superstition bill is seen as a big step ahead.
A large number of people took out a 'solidarity march' in South Delhi on Sunday in support of Jamia Millia Islamia students and those facing police action during protests against the contentious law.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah will soon get around to reworking their organisational set-up and administrative priorities to regain lost ground in the wake of the Delhi electoral debacle, but there's third course available to them as well. That is to introduce the presidential form of government, which prime ministers Indira Gandhi and A B Vajpayee flirted with before abandoning it. Will Modi go further than them? N Sathiya Moorthy analyses the scenario.
The birth of India's 29th state will be delayed if the President's rule in Andhra Pradesh is not passed in Parliament before April 30, reveals Governor ESL Narasimhan's "top secret " letter to Pranab Mukherjee
If either faction of the AIADMK failed to muster a floor majority, then the governor would be called upon to ask MK Stalin as the leader of the opposition if he would like to try his hand at government formation.
If the Opposition is bent upon shouting its own agenda on a deaf ruling dispensation, then it becomes binding upon the chair to ensure that the parliamentary affairs aren't reduced to a farce.
'We have about Rs 4 lakh crore debt on a state budget of about Rs 1.5 lakh crore.' 'We are in a debt two-and-a-half times our annual budget,' says the banker who would have been Tamil Nadu's finance minister had the DMK won.
'The moment the BJP loses a state, it announces some policy which never takes off.'
The DMK has Stalin and Stalin alone as the key campaigner. The rest of them all, including half-sister Kanimozhi, are tied down to their own constituencies while those like party treasurer and former minister S Duraimurugan, to those of their children's constituencies.
'Some of his decisions were not so good, but his intentions were always guided by a deep national interest.'
The Congress will only be able to gain from the bill if its benefits percolate down to the people within the next eight months, says Anita Katyal
Presenting a report card of two years of the Modi government, BJP chief Amit Shah credited the party for giving a "decisive" government.
The Constitution should not encumber these choices, specially limiting them to second-best or third-grade options.
'Despite the BJP's successes at the state-level, replicating their 282-seat majority in 2019 is going to be an uphill climb.'
The present elections were held in states where the BJP has a strong presence and organisation and where it was pitted directly against the Congress. But the party's real challenge lies in states outside the northern belt where it has a negligible presence and has to contend with strong regional players, reports Anita Katyal.
Amethi's member of Parliament failed to use his first formal television interview to reach out to the people in general and the electorate in particular ahead of the crucial elections in which the Congress has already been written off by opinion polls and surveys. He did little to change that impression by failing to exploit the platform provided to him.
Here's the full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's customary address to the joining sitting of Parliament on the first day of the budget session.
'I believe that in the BJP nobody can make anybody anything... I believe the media should analyse this after the end of my tenure!' 'My work is incomplete till I take the BJP to the four big states of West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.' BJP President Amit Shah, as never before!
Should Sasikala seek to follow Jayalalithaa's footsteps in the matter, and if at all she is not disinterested in keeping the twin posts together, the by-election to Jayalalithaa's constituency R K Nagar could be the starting point, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The year 2014 has been an eventful one for India. The country got a new government and a new state, broke new frontiers in various fields and of course its share of controversies.
Congress gets into the opposition groove but still has miles to go, says Saroj Nagi.
Despite the recent electoral reverses, Rahul is getting ready to walk the fire once more. The question is whether he will get burned or burnished in the process, says Saroj Nagi.
The controversy over Sant Rampal and his army of followers taking the law into their hands has once again thrown the spotlight on the clout that India's godmen possess.
'The unique achievements have been made by engineers from small towns who have had a non elite upbringing and who have grown with the programme,' says R Aravamudan, one of the pioneers of the Indian space programme.
'Hindu voters in coastal Karnataka lean more towards Hindutva than Hinduism which explains why the Siddaramaiah government's perception as anti-Hindu worked wonders for the BJP in coastal Karnataka.'
Sunday's results may be a bitter pill that the Congress has to swallow -- that its future cannot be hitched to Rahul unless he can resonate with the people, feels Saroj Nagi.
'Modi as the PM of the country has to take everybody on board and deliver on good governance. That is his responsibility. In that talking alone won't help, he's working.' Commerce Minister Dr Nirmala Sitharaman tells Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com how the Modi government plans to change India.
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