Political parties are getting battle-ready, nominating their best candidates to contest Election 2014... Rediff.com's incomparable Sheela Bhatt begins a new column where she reveals the ground realities in the Battle for India, as only she can. Don't miss it!
'The Opposition will continue to be attacked through misuse of agencies, civil society will be force-marched towards extinction and India's plummeting on global indices will continue.' 'Minorities and especially Muslims will continue to have open season declared on them. Institutions will continue their decline,' predicts Aakar Patel.
Modi polled 5,16,593 votes -- about half of the total votes -- while the Congress's Ajay Rai, and candidates of the Bahujan Samaj Party, Samajwadi Party now run the risk of forfeiting their deposits.
The prime minister said he was also grateful to his opponents who fought against him. At the same time he lamented there was a sense of political untouchability, adding Bharatiya Janata Party workers were being killed for their ideology in West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala.
'INDIA will easily cross 50 seats out of 90 in Jammu and Kashmir.'
The 52-year-old, who joins her mother Sonia and brother Rahul as an MP in what is a rare instance of three members of a family together in Parliament, would visit Parliament as a teenager to listen to her father Rajiv Gandhi speak as prime minister.
'Those who feared that I would have run one hell of a campaign targeting the most powerful people in India snatched away my democratic right from me.' 'I will expose these democracy-killers.'
Security was beefed up as agencies swept the airport terminals after the emails were received around 12.40 pm from the ID exhumedyou888@gmail.com.
The BJP and its allies won all assembly seats in Modi's Varanasi and Adityanath's Gorakhpur, and the SP bagged all 10 segments in Yadav's Azamgarh Lok Sabha constituency.
Yadav was dismissed in 2017 after he posted a video online complaining about the food served to the troops.
Heavy rainfall and electrocution of a worker at the venue of his public meeting in Varanasi on Thursday forced Prime Minister Narendra Modi to cancel his visit to his Lok Sabha constituency for the second time in about three weeks.
Despite the upbeat statement, the party is expected to reflect on what caused the sharp fall in its numbers. It is expected to win about 240 seats against the 303 it had won in 2019.
Puri Shankaracharya Swami Adhokshjanand Devtirath on Thursday said that he would go to Varanasi to ask religious leaders to oppose Narendra Modi, whom he held responsible for the 2002 riots in Gujarat.
'Someone who cannot even take his cabinet into confidence, how will he take the NDA alliance into confidence?'
He asked the local administration to help people with full sensitivity and asserted that the cooperation of society as well as the government is necessary to curb the pandemic.
Priyanka also dismissed Bharatiya Janata Party leader and union minister Uma Bharati's controversial remarks that the country will see her the way it views a "thief's wife".
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday exuded confidence that people have voted in record numbers to re-elect the National Democratic Alliance government and said the 'opportunistic INDI Alliance' failed to strike a chord with the voters who rejected their 'regressive politics'.
The notable names in the BJP's first list include Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh from Lucknow, Hema Malini from Mathura, Ajay Mishra Teni from Kheri, Smriti Irani from Amethi, Lallu Singh from Faizabad (Ayodhya) and Mahendra Nath Pandey from Chandauli among others.
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Posters asking non-Hindus to stay away from the ghats of the Ganga and the temples along the river came up in Varanasi, prompting the police to launch a probe.
Do you, our dear readers, think Arvind Kejriwal should take on the BJP's prime ministerial candidate from Varanasi? Or do you believe Kejrwal is fighting a losing battle?
Fielding a strong joint opposition candidate from Varanasi in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections was among the proposals discussed at the fourth meeting of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), sources said.
Though electoral verdicts have historically been accepted, even though grudgingly, by all parties, there has been a sharper edge to the questions being raised by Opposition parties this time over the polling process, including the Election Commission.
MARD has lost deposits on all seats it has contested so far since it was formed in 2018 but its leaders say they are undeterred by elections losses.
Gandhi said the party will defeat the saffron party and Narendra Modi in Gujarat just the way it was defeated in Ayodhya.
As the election campaign for the 16th Lok Sabha drew to a close on Saturday, May 10, Varanasi looked like a city undergoing an exodus. According to the Election Commission guidelines, those engaged in campaign activities -- if they were not voters in the constituency, irrespective of their party or candidate affiliation -- would have to leave the city after canvassing ended. A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com takes stock as the whirlwind campaign in Varanasi ended.
Sachin Tendulkar performs Jal Abhishek at the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
Was Ajay Rai put up just to hobble Kejriwal in Varanasi?
The micro-site on Varanasi was launched on Wednesday.
Wrapping up his two-day visit to Varanasi, Modi said work done in the city is clearly visible.
The TDP and JD-U will have a lot to answer inside Parliament, day after day, session after session, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Even as the controversy surrounding 'Har Har Modi' slogan is yet to die down, supporters of Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi have released a new poster in the temple town of Modi using a "modified" version of a 'shloka' eulogising Goddess Durga.
Voting for the seventh and final round will be held on March 7 for Varanasi and its eight adjoining districts.
Three bags filled with nearly 145 kg of highly explosive ammonium nitrate were discovered in an abandoned car in Varanasi on Saturday.
The youth -- their dreams of government jobs unfulfilled -- are voicing their frustration.
The country has seen that "people are God" in elections, the PM said.
In his absence, the party stares at uncertainty as many of its other senior leaders are either in jail or in political obscurity.
As the Prime Minister hit the campaign trail in his Lok Sabha constituency, the Bharatiya Janata Party in Varanasi on Saturday charged the administration with "selectively" pulling down its posters in the name of implementing the poll code.
In order to strike a balance between the diverse communities in Varanasi, the Aam Aadmi Party will focus on tree major issues -- river, weaver and sewer -- when it takes on Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
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