Muslim voters in the Old City in Lucknow know the decisive value of their votes, but are wary that their votes are divided, and that, they fear, will only help Narendra Modi. Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com speaks to Muslim voters in the land of tehzeeb and gauges their apprehensions about a Modi sarkar.
Describing himself as a "son of soil", Congress candidate Ajay Rai says the poll battle in Varanasi will be mainly a contest with "outsider" Narendra Modi and dismisses any challenge from "deserter" Arvind Kejriwal.
While main political parties especially Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party are engaging in high-voltage campaign in Assam, young voters, especially the first timers, sound at a loss about which party or the candidate to choose, as they are hardly convinced about the poll promises and have not been swayed by histrionics of poll candidates.
With political parties using him as punching bag in the highly charged election campaign, Adani Group head Gautam Adani on Sunday said he got no special favours from Narendra Modi and his group has since 1993 acquired only barren waste land for infrastructure projects.
Despite Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis' ambitious plan, 40 per cent of the state is reeling from drought and its water tanker economy is booming. As of February 2019, the state government declared drought in 151 of the 358 talukas.
The ADR report states that 222 out of the total 1295 candidates in the fray in the 7th phase of polls have criminal records. There are also 341 crorepati candidates in the list.
'Modi's political economy is more inspired by Indira Gandhi than Vajpayee.' 'She so wanted an Opposition-mukt Bharat.' 'Sounds familiar?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
As the nation heads toward the general election, the Congress fortunes have most likely dipped below the point of no return. The Modi-BJP juggernaut rolls along despite some hiccups. And the meteor that rose in the form of the AAP and its leader Arvind Kejriwal seems to be disintegrating, says Shreekant Sambrani.
'Amit Shah and Modi have a disciple and guru relationship. But Modi and Jaitley's relationship was based on friendship. That's the difference.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday said that the Third Front was like a "parking lot" where parties come and go and ruled out any chance of it forming a government at the Centre.
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Friday said a security cover is being provided to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal without his knowledge and despite his repeated rejection for it.
'We will have a big say in Delhi in 2018 or 2019 (whenever the elections are) in the Lok Sabha.'
After placating sitting MP Suresh Kalmadi who was sulking over denial of ticket, the Congress managers are confronted with a tough task of retaining the Pune Lok Sabha seat by overcoming the main challenge from a resurgent BJP in a quadrangular contest which is on cards.
As Varanasi's mega electoral battle reaches a crescendo, the Congress on Wednesday stepped up offensive against Narendra Modi accusing him of invoking religious sentiments to woo voters as his "personality cult" campaign had failed, and tried to paint it as a fight between the "son of the soil" and "outsiders".
Kannada writer U R Ananthamurthy, who had said that he would leave the country if Narendra Modi becomes the prime minister, on Monday said those remarks were made when he was "overcome by emotion" and clarified that he had no such plan, though he continues to oppose the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday shared dais with NCP leader Sharad Pawar and had lunch with him in Baramati
'The voter thinks that the State is not going to impartially deliver services, provide justice, basic law and order, social insurance -- so as a voter it's very rational that I may choose a criminal who will help me navigate the State.' 'A weak State allows a criminal politician to be the person who provides that guarantee to mediate whatever problem the citizen has with the State.'
'Shashi Tharoor has publicised whatever little he has done, far more than what he has actually done. Some of the bigger promises he made could never be implemented.' Ajit Joy, a former police officer and Aam Aadmi Party candidate from Thiruvananthapuram, tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier that he is a more attractive candidate in his constituency than sitting MP Tharoor.
Here is the full transcript of Congress vice president and Lok Sabha poll campaign chief Rahul Gandhi's first formal TV interview with Times Now Editor-In-Chief Arnab Goswami.
Have Muslim women taken to the BJP under Modi even while their menfolk cling to 'secular' politics, asks Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
This theory of 'Hindus vs the rest' sees the two communities as two separate blocs. Isn't that the two-nation theory? What of the deep bonds that the communities have on the ground? asks Jyoti Punwani.
The opposition has attacked the Modi government over the National Democratic Alliance's last full-fledged budget before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
With the ignominy of a duck in Delhi, the free-fall in Congress' fortunes under Rahul Gandhi continued unabated with possibly grim forebodings for the grand old party.
Mukhar Abbas Naqvi, senior vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, is convinced that Narendra Modi will become the next prime minister of India.
How has Raj Thackeray, who is as much a businessman as politician, been able to pull it off, when most Opposition politicians live in fear of IT and ED and CBI, asks Krishna Prasad after attending a Raj rally in Nashik.
As the year 2014 draws to an end, we at Rediff.com take to look at some of the ridiculous remarks made by some blundering politicos.
Taking West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee head on, the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi accused her of playing vote bank politics and said no real 'parivartan' (change) has taken place in the state during the Trinamool Congress' rule.
Hema Malini spoke with Upasna Pandey about her preparedness and exuded confidence to win the election with "the grace of Lord Krishna and love of people of Mathura."
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.
The jobless armies of youthful India are getting angrier and desperate, warns Shekhar Gupta.
Narendra Modi could be in for a tough fight in Varanasi with the Congress declaring its resolve to put up a formidable candidate against the Bharatiya Janata Party's PM nominee in the Lok Sabha polls and ruling out support to the Aaam Aadmi Party's Arvind Kejriwal.
The BJP needs to revisit its strategy ahead of the forthcoming Haryana and Maharashtra assembly elections, says Dharmendra Kumar Singh
'What of Modi? They are willing to take their chances. Maharashtra's Muslims recall how the Congress scared them with the Bal Thackeray bogey for decades, yet, when it came to using all the might of the State to protect them from Shiv Sena goons, be it in 1970, 1984 or 1992-1993, it did nothing. For them, the Congress's secularism is a cruel joke.' 'This argument that we ('seculars') must vote for the 'winning secular candidate' has one more implication: Those who are against Hindutva must forever be stuck with the same corrupt, cynical and tired old parties, who are not even secular,' says Jyoti Punwani.
It was a manic Monday in Varanasi. The voting day lived up to the hype created by the campaigning here. Vicky Nanjappa reports
On Friday, Khadse made a futile bid to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval as well as senior party leaders in New Delhi.
Over 20 political parties, except the Biju Janata Dal and the Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Front, took part in the massive rally.
'When the world was refining itself, India was going backwards culturally with so many rape cases and other atrocities against women, children and the elderly. The growth of evil forces was very bad in the last 10 years,' says Malayalam movie star Suresh Gopi, who met Narendra Modi recently tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier in this exclusive interview.
Sinha, a former finance minister, hogged the limelight and started trending high on social media on Wednesday morning, after he criticised his own government for sinking the economy, in an article he penned for The Indian Express.
