The BJP will enter this election, as it does every election, as if it is fighting to prevent a 2004-style defeat. This is a party that wins big because it always behaves as if its back is to the wall, predicts Mihir S Sharma.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
Hours before the ceremony, Saini visited the Valmiki Bhawan and offered prayers at a gurdwara and the Mansa Devi temple in Panchkula.
With the CAA rules being issued, the Modi government will now start granting Indian nationality to persecuted non-Muslim migrants -- Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians -- from the three countries.
Amid the political blame game over Bengal's potato ban, which led to shortages in Jharkhand and Odisha, Uttar Pradesh farmers are the unlikely winners.
'He fears that the youth tide has gone against him and he will be swept away in the next assembly election in the state.'
Here are some of the famous faces queued up to get ink mark on their fingers.
According to BJP insiders, every Union minister has been given 3-4 seats to mentor and has been told to work hard on these constituencies in the next 20 months to ensure the party's victory.
'Parties which supported me were all threatened. This could hardly have been called a fair election.' 'This is Modi's India.'
Digital canvassing is expected to benefit from political money looking for alternative blow horns.
The prime minister has been unveiling a slew of development projects running into lakhs of crores of rupees at various places as he turns the spotlight on his government's development and welfare agenda in the run-up to the general elections expected to be held in April-May.
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.
The latest extension will allow Bhalla to stay in the post during the general elections due early next year.
'After a month of working on the new machine, I realised that the black glass on the VVPAT lets the programmer manipulate not just the electronic system, but the paper vote too.' 'And it will not be detected even during the mock poll or the actual voting because of the black glass.'
Gandhi, who is seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala, in a video appeal said this election is to save democracy and the Constitution.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday expressed confidence in the unity of the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) in combating injustice nationwide, a day after Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee's decision to go solo in the Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal.
For now, Modi's government appears singularly focussed on demonstrating that it is not in any way inhibited by the BJP's loss of a majority, and will continue along its patented path of bulldozing all opposition and doing just as it likes, asserts Prem Panicker.
'It is in the interest of China and Pakistan to give a bad name to the Indian Army and remove AFSPA 'completely' from the north east.' 'Hopefully, better sense will prevail and the ground realities of the army countering insurgency in the north east acknowledged,' asserts Lieutenant General Prakash Katoch (retd).
Those joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers for the first time include three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
Campaigning ended on Wednesday evening for 102 Lok Sabha seats across 21 states and Union territories which will go to polls in the first phase on April 19 with top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) making a last-gasp effort to woo voters.
Senior BJP leader and Patnagarh MLA KV Singh Deo and debutant from Nimapara assembly segment Pravati Parida took oath as deputy chief ministers.
'For the last two elections, the Congress manifesto has been thrown into the dustbin.' 'This manifesto will also be thrown into the dustbin.'
Granting interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal would not amount to grant of privilege or special status to politicians, the Supreme Court on Friday said, while observing that the Aam Aadmi Party leader has no criminal antecedents and is not a threat to the society.
The heat wave is likely to impact parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha and Gangetic West Bengal, the Met office said.
It will be in Modi's interest to reinvent his party, read the writing on the wall that voters wrote, and move ahead. He has little choice now. The country is watching, asserts Ramesh Menon.
Police personnel checked vehicles and conducted flag marches at various places in Punjab on Wednesday while central forces maintained a tight vigil in Tripura.
A high-level committee on Thursday recommended simultaneous elections for Lok Sabha and state assemblies as the first step followed by synchronised local body polls within 100 days.
Addressing a big rally in Kolkata to launch the Bharatiya Janata Party's Lok Sabha campaign, Shah launched a blistering attack on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the issues of appeasement, infiltration, corruption and political violence, alleging she has "destroyed" the state.
Helicopters are anticipated to be more in demand compared to fixed-wing aircraft as choppers will help in providing accessibility to rural and remote areas in a shorter time.
The Congress appeared to have bounced back in the state's political landscape after suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of the AAP in the 2022 Punjab assembly polls.
It's intriguing that the prime minister now wants his American partner to help protect the Hindu minority in Bangladesh. That's conceding to the Americans a pre-eminence India has always contested, resented and feared, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge Saturday said the Lok Sabha poll mandate is a "decisive rejection" of the politics of divisiveness and hate, and stressed that the INDIA bloc must continue functioning cohesively both inside and outside Parliament.
Soren, who is scheduled to join the Bharatiya Janata Party on August 30, also resigned as an MLA of the state assembly and a minister in the Jharkhand Cabinet.
The Congress 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra', led by Rahul Gandhi, is scheduled to enter West Bengal from Assam on Thursday, amid political ripples within the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) in the state.
Modi, in his rally just days ahead of the last phase of the Lok Sabha election, also said that "well-wishers of Naveen babu are worried over his deteriorating health condition."
A voter turnout of 60.19 per cent was recorded till 5 pm in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections in 93 constituencies spread over 11 states and Union Territories on Tuesday with sporadic incidents of violence in West Bengal.
'Someone who cannot even take his cabinet into confidence, how will he take the NDA alliance into confidence?'
As a consequence of prominence given to the brutality during those few days, a very important aspect of that episode got almost glossed over. This was the intervention by a very significant section of people who restored faith in humanity, and conveyed the message that only a small section of Indians, that too politically backed, were consumed by anti-Sikh majoritarianism. The overlooked facet of the events of 1984 was the story of significant sections of the city's populace, public figures and nondescript ones, stepping out hand-in-hand, to first stand with little but bravery in hands, in the way of attackers, and thereafter to provide immediate relief to those who lives were uprooted and who lost family members in the violence, recalls Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Chowdhury said the schedule of the yatra was submitted to the state administration long ago.
The rules for the CAA are likely to be issued before the MCC comes into effect, sources privy to the development said.
