Blame the voter, who invariably chooses the promise of hand-outs today in preference to a vague promise of, say, better schools tomorrow. Getting the Supreme Court to issue an edict, or Parliament to pass a law, is no solution, observes T N Ninan.
In a reprieve for Bharatiya Janata Party leader Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, the Punjab and Haryana high court on Tuesday ordered the continuation of the interim protection against arrest granted to him till July 6 in a case of allegedly making provocative statements, promoting enmity and criminal intimidation.
Democracy is the heart of our body politic and elections are its life blood. Because there is some disease that affects it, we cannot apply leeches to drain it off, killing the body in the process, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
Claiming that the BJP's government's works in the three holy cities are only follow-ups of her government's initiatives, Mayawati went on to promise, in what is being seen as a subtle shift towards soft Hindutva ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, to complete all those work on time.
The coming year will be one that will test sabka vishwas to the utmost, predicts Aditi Phadnis.
The seat-share progression should worry the BJP. From the previous assembly polls of 2017, through the assembly segments in its favour in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and now in 2022, the BJP's seat-share has come down from a high 312 to 275 to 255. N Sathiya Moorthy reads the political tea leaves after the UP and Punjab election verdicts.
Punjab Education Minister Surjit Singh Rakhra on Saturday triggered a controversy by making an insensitive comment that the death of the teenage girl, who was molested and thrown off a bus belonging to the ruling Badal family, was God's will.
What some of our leaders were up to over the weekend...
A few former MLAs, considered to be his loyalists and a few supporters, turned up at Sidhu's residence in Patiala Friday morning to extend moral support to him.
The BJP hopes that any vote AAP gets should only be from the Congress. At the same time, it does not want AAP to get too much of it. Because, a declining old opponent is a blessing as much as a rising new rival is a threat, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Most leaders agreed for early finalisation of poll plans for 2024 stressing that there was no time left with them and mere meetings would not help.
Differences in the top rung of Aam Aadmi Party have come to the fore with Manish Sisodia accusing Yogendra Yadav of targeting party chief Arvind Kejriwal and making internal matters public.
"Have you heard him singing Rinkiya ke papa," Kejriwal talked about Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari.
'It is a well-entrenched belief in the downtrodden, the deprived sections, that Modi cares for them. He has come to occupy their mindspace as their messiah.' 'And it is this deprived, dispossessed section that is powering his electoral performance, breaking ancient shibboleths and shackles like religion and caste and region and language,' argues Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
The two parties, however, are in a neck-and-neck race in Manipur and Goa.
'People of my constituency told me they will continue loving me, but will not vote for me if I am with the BJP.'
A team of about five CBI officials reached the PNB branch at Sector 4 Vasundhara in Ghaziabad, on the outskirts of the national capital, to execute the search, officials said.
The colourful rally galvanised the BRS workers who shouted slogans hailing the party-led regime's welfare schemes in Telangana and peppy political songs praised Rao's 'national' emergence.
The BJP registered a victory in the Rajouri Garden assembly bypoll, handing a humiliating defeat to the ruling Aam Aadmi Party, which finished a distant third and even lost its deposit.
Addressing a press conference a day after the CBI raid against him, Sisodia expressed apprehension that the agency or the Enforcement Directorate (ED) may arrest him in the next 3-4 days, while Chief Minister Kejriwal, who has been aggressively taking on the Bharatiya Janata Party in Modi's home state, announced on Twitter that he will be touring Gujarat with Sisodia from Monday.
The two chief ministers had lunch together and discussed various issues, including the current political situation in the country.
The Reliance gas pricing issue is likely to find a place in the Aam Aadmi Party's manifesto as the new party has already indicated that it will be among the major issues to target the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress in the Lok Sabha election.
Kerala Chief Minister and CPI-M leader Pinarayi Vijayan, Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu, West Bengal CM and Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee, and Karnataka CM Kumaraswamy lent support to the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party government's fight with the Centre.
Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia on Tuesday accused Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and deputy CM Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa of hatching a conspiracy against him and dubbed registration of case against him as 'political vendetta.'
Leaders from 26 opposition parties, in power individually or in alliance in Delhi and 10 states, are meeting in Bengaluru to discuss strategy to take on the Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The Congress has already been deserted by the urban middle classes and the youth, but by outsourcing its battle against the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi to the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Admi Party, the grand old party could end up inflicting more damage on itself.
'In AAP, those who are in charge of a particular state provide information to Arvind Kejriwal. 'In the BJP, several organisations convey what is happening on the ground to the top leadership.' 'There are so many channels through which issues are being understood.'
Sources said the opposition parties would look to avoid the prickly leadership question as of now and emphasise on building a common ground.
As Bhagwant Mann repeatedly invokes Bhagat Singh in his speeches, Utkarsh Mishra picks five takeaways from the legendary revolutionary's thoughts that may help Punjab's new chief minister identity his goals.
'In its short life, AAP has distinguished itself in many, many, governance spheres.' 'But party democracy is not one of them,' notes Aditi Phadnis.
The SAD also castigated the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party for allegedly betraying farmers by not opposing the passage of the bills in Lok Sabha.
Manish Sisodia's elevation as Delhi CM would set Arvind Kejriwal free to take up a significant role in national politics, or he could return to activism, says Sudhir Bisht.
Sisodia's reaction came after the BJP shared the purported sting to claim that the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi framed its excise policy to help a select few and used the money earned through alleged corruption to fund its campaign in Goa and Punjab assembly polls.
The order to suspend the services was issued by the home affairs and justice department and heavy police security was deployed at the site of the clashes outside the Kali Mata temple in Patiala.
As Delhi gears up for assembly polls, Upasna Pandey speaks to Aam Aadmi Party leader HS Phoolka about the Modi factor, the issues on which the Sikh electorate and why the AAP is likely to return to power.
Often credited with his party's victory in the 2012 assembly polls, now 59, he became the youngest chief of the Shiromani Akali Dal, when he was elevated to the post in 2008.
Arvind Kejriwal warned the media that "very big forces" would try and break the INDIA alliance by showing that there was a lot of acrimony among them.
The Delhi Police later said they detained AAP MP Bhagwant Mann and over a hundred protesting workers after 'they started getting agitated'. Addressing his party workers from Punjab at the protest, Kejriwal said the AAP has a very clear stance on the farm laws.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre to file a status report within two weeks on the Special Investigation Team probe into the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi.
Navjot Sidhu's life inside jail wouldn't be ten percent as hard as that of an ordinary convict who is in jail for assault leading to unintentional death, argues Sudhir Bisht.
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