'Rahul Gandhi's problem is that he doesn't think big.' 'He looks more like an activist, while politics is like a game of chess. You attack and then defend and have a game-plan.'
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday alleged that over 5,000 social media accounts, mostly operated from Islamic countries, have become active in favour of the Assam Congress.
Newly appointed Bharatiya Janata Party national working president Nitin Nabin on Monday termed his elevation as a blessing of the party and claimed that it is the only political outfit that allows its grassroots workers to thrive.
The BJP's MoSha leadership are past masters in encouraging defections from their allies if it helped their party capture the chief minister's chair. In Bihar, they are not sure if JD-U MPs and MLAs would be willing to cross over to the BJP if the Nitish leadership came on top -- and the NDA crossed the halfway mark together, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Left to its machinations, the BJP would have loved to cut Nitish down to size, but it can't afford to do so as the JD-U is in alliance with the BJP at the Centre, and cannot form a government on its own in Bihar. For now, both need each other: Nitish for legitimacy, the BJP for numbers, points out Ramesh Menon.
Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are due in 2026.
The National Democratic Alliance was set to sweep the Bihar assembly polls, surging ahead in over 200 of 243 seats on Friday with the Bharatiya Janata Party emerging as single largest party with about 90 per cent strike rate, reaffirming the popularity and campaign clout of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was the face of the ruling alliance through the poll battle in the highly sensitive political state.
'Mob fury has become very common these days. And these attacks are all planned very well.' 'In all these attacks, you see that they have a very clear cut plan to make the victims as the oppressors and the guilty.' 'The attackers escape and they face no consequences as they have the backing of some political leaders.'
After big win in Bihar, the BJP is likely to push harder in Tamil Nadu, where the DMK government and the uneasy BJP-AIADMK alliance are preparing for a tense election filled with seat-sharing fights, changing alliances, and the unpredictable entry of Vijay's TVK party, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Congress's performance in the Lok Sabha elections showed that it may be down but not out, and Modi is determined to ensure that in the next round in 2029, it is consigned to irrelevance, points out Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
Election Commission's Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters' list commenced in nine states and three Union territories on Tuesday, amid objections from several parties with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee leading the anti-SIR offensive in West Bengal with a rally in Kolkata and alleging 'silent, invisible rigging' through the exercise.
Voters in 30 assembly constituencies of West Bengal and 47 of Assam exercised their franchise on Saturday.
Senior Congress leader and former Rajya Sabha MP Ripun Bora was on Thursday questioned by Assam Police in connection with a case related to party colleague Gaurav Gogoi's alleged links with Pakistan, officials said.
Thousands of TMC supporters thronged the rally route, waving the party flags, raising slogans and holding aloft colourful posters.
The swearing-in ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP national president J P Nadda and several other top leaders of the NDA.
Here's how brokerages across the country are interpreting the exit polls.
If he cannot do it this term by using his bureaucracy and experts from different fields, it will be a tragedy, asserts Ramesh Menon.
Senior Congress leader Ripun Bora has been summoned by Assam Police for questioning in connection with a case related to party colleague Gaurav Gogoi's alleged links with Pakistan. The summons comes after Bora publicly stated that Gogoi's wife received salaries from the Pakistan government, which prompted Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to claim that Bora "knows a lot" about Gogoi's alleged links. The case centers around allegations of Pakistani national Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, who is claimed to have links with Gogoi's British wife Elizabeth Colburn, interfering in India's internal affairs. Gogoi has vehemently denied the allegations and accused Sarma of making baseless accusations.
Here is a closer look at politicos who have emerged victorious in the electoral contest of five state assemblies.
This is the third meeting of CEOs after Gyanesh Kumar took over as the chief election commissioner in February. However, Wednesday's day-long meeting assumes significance as the preparedness of a pan-India SIR are being discussed, officials said.
'There is a saying in Assamese about inflicting pain on an adversary: He cut my hands with a sword and rubbed salt into my wounds.' 'This has never been the BJP's culture but it started happening openly and frequently under Himanta Biswa Sarma.'
A group of students from Kolkata University's Carmichael Hostel were allegedly attacked near Sealdah and branded as "Bangladeshis" by shopkeepers and miscreants, triggering a political row.
Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Jogen Mohan had on August 22 tabled The Assam Repealing Bill, 2024 in the Assembly to abolish The Assam Moslem Marriages and Divorces Registration Act, 1935 and the Assam Repealing Ordinance 2024.
Sixteen per cent of the candidates contesting in the first phase of Assam assembly elections have declared criminal cases against themselves, according to a report by poll rights group Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
'Modi's charisma may have weakened as last year's Lok Sabha poll results showed but in the eyes of the Sangh Parivar, it has not waned.' 'Minus a strong BJP government at the Centre for another decade and more, there is apprehension that an anti-Hindutva government could reverse many of the ideological gains that the Modi dispensation has achieved through its three terms,' points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Addressing a massive Martyrs' Day rally in Kolkata, Banerjee gave a clarion call to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2026 assembly elections and eventually oust it from power at the Centre, declaring, "If this linguistic profiling doesn't stop, our resistance movement will reach New Delhi."
West Bengal and Assam voted in the first phase of assembly elections on Saturday. Polling was held for 30 seats in West Bengal and 47 seats in Assam amid tight security. Among the long queues of voters, there were some famous faces too who exercised their franchise.
All 18 members of opposition All India United Democratic Front were expelled from the Assam assembly on Monday, the opening day of the monsoon session by Speaker Pranab Kumar Gogoi amidst noisy scenes.
Newly appointed Assam Congress chief Gaurav Gogoi has denied allegations of having links to the Pakistani establishment, calling the claims made by the BJP a "C-grade Bollywood movie" that will "flop miserably." Gogoi said he had only visited Pakistan once 12 years ago with his wife, who was working on an international project focused on climate change. He questioned why the BJP government had not acted on the allegations in the past 11 years if there was any wrongdoing. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who made the initial allegations, said he would release further evidence on September 10 after a Special Investigation Team (SIT) completes its inquiry.
The juggernaut of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance, which triumphed in three of the four east and north-eastern states that went for assembly bypolls on Saturday, was halted yet again in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress registered a six-on-six clean sweep.
Leaders of several INDIA bloc parties met the Election Commission over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar and raised concerns over its timing, alleging that over two crore voters of the state may be disenfranchised by this mammoth exercise being done just ahead of assembly elections.
'Talking about boycotting polls is simply a move to galvanise party leaders, workers, and supporters for the big political fight.'
'40 percent of voters in Bihar will be excluded.'
Election Commission officials report finding a large number of illegal migrants from Nepal, Bangladesh, and Myanmar during a review of Bihar's voters' list. Measures are being taken to exclude them from the final electoral roll.
"Around 20 candidates have been shifted to Jaipur from Assam today," said Congress chief whip in the Rajasthan assembly, Mahesh Joshi.
Gandhi alleged that assembly and Lok Sabha polls were being "stolen" across the country and there was a "conspiracy" in Bihar to do the same through the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
In the last 11 years, India and the world witnessed what he stood for, what he promised and did not deliver, and what he actually stood for and practised without fearing how history would judge him. Modi's tenure has been punctuated with headline-grabbing decisions, symbolic gestures, and stage-managed moments that continue to define his leadership and India's politics, points out Ramesh Menon.
Will Mamata's bhasha andolan campaign sway Bengal's bhadralok before the 2026 election in the TMC's favour?
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