The ruling coalition won 125 seats in the 243-member state assembly against 110 clinched by the opposition Grand Alliance to pave the way for a fourth successive term for Kumar in office.
Stalin has started campaigning in the name of father Karunanidhi as the party's CM's candidate, but does not seem to have given up hope.
'The political fallout of the verdict on national politics is pregnant with incredible opportunities.' 'Post-judgment politics can change the ground rules of election campaigning in the coming decades,' says Sheela Bhatt
The BSP supremo is looking forward to the support of Dalits and Muslims to seize the throne in Lucknow, writes Amit Shankar.
Raja Sen analyses the contenders for the Best Supporting Actor category at the Oscars.
Sir Mark Tully on the magic of Indian elections. A fascinating excerpt from The Great March of Democracy: Seven Decades of India's Elections.
The ruling AIADMK is leaving no stone unturned to win the Vellore Lok Sabha poll and push its tally to two in the state, with its candidate even donning the skull cap to woo minority votes. But the DMK's stars are clearly on the ascendant in the lone constituency that goes to the polls on August 5. A Ganesh Nadar reports.
The title alludes to Socrates willingly drinking poisonous hemlock as his punishment after he was convicted of corrupting the minds of the young and impiety in ancient Athens.
Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev's social outfit, the Bharat Swabhiman Trust, has initiated a training programme for young volunteers from across the nation to campaign against 'corrupt and tainted' political leaders during the upcoming five-state assembly polls
'Modi underestimated Pawar.'
As electoral sails shift in the dynamic political winds of West Bengal, two factors may still change the electoral equations are how the BJP fares this time and how Muslims are going to vote. Mayank Mishra reports.
'If they really wanted to give him competition, the AIADMK should have contested the seat, not its ally the PMK.'
The BJP has incorporated caste as a significant component of its politics.
'People may think that because my father was in the film world and politics, things are easy for me.' 'It is not easy at all.'
AAP's Okhla candidate Amanatullah Khan trounced his BJP rival Braham Singh by a margin of 71,827 votes. Shaheen Bagh and Jamia Nagar fall under the Okhla constituency.
As Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party registered a thumping victory in the Delhi assembly polls, take a look at how the heavyweights fared.
Kamala succeeded as she identified herself with the larger minority groups rather than narrow ethnicity, prodded by her mother who did not want to return to India, observes Ambassador T P Sreenivasan, who has done multiple stints in India's embassy in Washington, DC.
He pointed out that such a restriction is not prevalent in many Islamic countries.
Like ants declining to question the rules of the anthill, they feel innately justified in their approach, notes Shyam G Menon.
Vidarbha had given as many as 44 seats to the BJP in 2014. The Congress and NCP, plus independents and smaller parties, snatched 19 seats from the BJP, reports Abhishek Waghmare.
'Wayanad has become famous because of Rahul Gandhi.'
'Whatever the result on December 18, Rahul has succeeded.' 'He has taken the battle to the rival's territory, and forced him to take him more seriously than he has done so far, or would have wished to.' 'A party, dominating and powerful as the BJP today, is spending all its time attacking the leader of one with just 46 seats in the Lok Sabha, and in the woods in Gujarat for 22 years.' 'This isn't the script the BJP had written,' says Shekhar Gupta.
The party's most important electoral challenge lies in whether it can meet the aspirations of the youth who were drawn by the promise of gainful work.
Modi slammed opposition parties for seeking proof of the damage done by the Indian Air Force in Pakistan's Balakot.
Noting that it was his government that had recommended a CBI probe into the actor's death, Kumar said the incident saddened both the state and the country.
The humility with which the BJP deals with these 10 lessons will determine the outcome of 2019, says Shekhar Gupta.
'Although Narendra Modi had no direct participation in the Ayodhya agitation, he would not have been in the dominant position he is now had it not been for the Ram Janambhoomi agitation.'
'The unprecedented bitterness and rancour that marked this election campaign need not spill over into government and governance,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'What did we get out of this agitation? Nothing... Now we feel it was all a mistake. We have no work, and our land has turned infertile. We are living in abject poverty'
The DMK's campaign appeared to be the most visible with propaganda at a feverish pace across the segment for the April 6 assembly polls and Stalin is the party's chief minister candidate.
Former Board of Control for Cricket in India president Biswanath Dutt, best known in Indian cricket fraternity as Jagmohan Dalmiya's mentor, passed away on Monday after suffering from acute lung infection.
'It must have stung Devendra Fadnavis to see Modi asking MPs at the BJP parliamentary party meeting to give Yediyurappa a standing ovation for his victory in the by-elections that has resulted in pulling the BJP government in Karnataka off the ventilator,' notes Aditi Phadnis.
For a party that has adopted the successful social re-engineering model from Gujarat, Rajasthan and across the rest of the 'Hindi belt' over the past decades, Tamil Nadu continues to remain a tricky customer, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Does a political or social worker ever retire? Is Nitish Kumar himself contesting the assembly elections'
'Chirag Paswan's game plan would be to push out Nitish Kumar from this alliance, but that is only possible if the BJP wins about 90 seats and the LJP wins between 25-30 seats.'
The Karnataka BJP core committee had proposed only Tejaswini's name for the Lok Sabha seat, but Tejaswi Surya emerged the dark horse.
'No country or society ever prospered or remained secure by marginalising more than one-sixth of its own,' warns Shekhar Gupta.
The 41-year-old 'young gun' travelled the length and breadth of the state to strengthen the party at the grassroots level and ensure its comeback.
Thursday's Lok Sabha elections will be a landmark for Tibetan youth as they finally get the right to vote in their adopted homeland, reports Anshul Gupta.
The defeat of Dimple Yadav, the young daughter-in-law of Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav to Bollywood actorturned-politician Raj Babbar in the Firozabad Lok Sabha by-election was a writing on the wall.
