With the Tamil Nadu electorate having given him an unprecedented mandate that had eluded his father the late M Karunanidhi, Stalin has to prove his worth, ensuring at the same time that the Dravidian drag on the AIADMK's side does not open up space for the BJP to make inroads in the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Voting will be held on Thursday in bypolls to seven assembly seats in six states -- a contest symbolic of the fierce turf war between the Bharatiya Janata Party and regional parties.
A senior TRS leader had said his party expects the Congress to not cross the 100-seats mark.
Congress said another Mahabharat would be fought over proposed amendments in the land acquisition act.
A massive pan-India inoculation drive against COVID-19 was set in process on Tuesday with more than 56 lakh doses of the Covishield vaccine flown to 13 cities across India from Pune and taken to designated national and state-level stores amid tight security.
Stalin, like his father M Karunanidhi did in 2004, may play the king-maker in a way -- not the king, unless the 2024 post-poll circumstances throws up a situation where he alone becomes acceptable to the rest, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
She also took a swipe at the Bharatiya Janata Party over its defeat in the just-concluded Himachal Pradesh assembly elections, saying the ruling party's president could not hold on to his home state. "Who is the Pappu now?" she asked.
Will Malik's worldview, shaped by his years with the socialists, Charan Singh, the Congress and V P Singh, help him govern the troubled state? Or would his rule have the imprint of the party he joined in the latter years of his chequered political career?
His comment came after the Shiv Sena attacked him for petitioning the president to save Mumbai blast convict Yakub Memon from the gallows.
'These naval sailors should have been given due respect as freedom fighters.' 'February 18, 1946 should be as important as January 26 because that date changed everything.'
If there is unity in the Opposition, it is only about regional parties other than the DMK not wanting Rahul Gandhi or any other Congress leader for prime minister, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The tribal leader, India's youngest president at 64 and the first to be born after Independence, took oath of office in the name of god to 'preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and the law'.
The party leaders are confident the NDA will achieve the majority mark of 272, reports Archis Mohan.
Parliament has passed a bill to extend the tenure of the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to a maximum of five years from the present two years.
'KCR's plan for the future is three-pronged. He wants to see a non-Congress, non-BJP government at the Centre in 2019 so that he can become the Union minister for home or defence,' says R Rajagopalan.
"Very shortly we will come out with a concrete plan," Rao told reporters after meeting the Trinamool Congress president.
Is it inconsistency in policy, or the lack of robust support?
The Congress may stand a better chance in the assembly polls if it followed the 'Himachal model', suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
The elections to legislative assemblies of Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, and Odisha will be held simultaneously along with the Lok Sabha polls
The joint committee of Parliament examining the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 has adopted its report on the bill with several opposition MPs, including those from the Congress, Ttrinamool Congress and Biju Janata Dal, submitting their dissent notes.
Parliamentarians and legislators across the country voted on Monday to elect India's 15th president, choosing between opposition pick Yashwant Sinha and National Democratic Alliance nominee Droupadi Murmu who is favoured to win the battle to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Even as the BJP makes inroads into previously unfamiliar territories in eastern India, the party will have to be wary of losing out elsewhere, says Amulya Ganguli.
Take a look at the famous faces who exercised their democratic right.
Stalin owes his victory this time, like in 2019, to the hate-campaign of the local Hindutva forces, which kept haranguing him, and even his dead father, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said it will 'depend on the situation' who becomes the face of the Opposition to take on the BJP, but added she has no problem if someone other than her leads.
Leaders from different political parties raised the issue of the gruesome murder and rape of a veterinary doctor in Telangana in Parliament on Monday.
A 6 per cent swing in favour of Biju Janata Dal appeared to have catapulted the regional party to a landslide victory in simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly polls in Odisha where it stormed back to power for the fourth consecutive term.
The Congress' fortune in Odisha has been on the slide ever since it lost power to the Biju Janata Dal in the 2000 elections. Party loyalist Giridhar Gamang's resignation has only added to its problems, says Dillip Satapathy
K Chandrasekhar Rao deputed the party's working president and his son K T Rama Rao and other senior leaders to hold parleys with the leader of the opposition in Andhra Pradesh, Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, on Wednesday.
This race among parties to woo the farmers mainly stems from the analysis of political pundits that the peasant class played a crucial role in the defeat of the BJP in Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh.
The ground, which served as the battleground for the 51-year-old bureaucrat-turned-politician during the Anna Hazare-led India Against Corruption movement, is getting decked up and workers are busy making arrangements.
If the Congress recovers some of its earlier influence among the Dalits, the BJP will be in a quandary since the Dalits were among the party's latest acquisitions. To lose them will be a disaster for the saffron camp not only in UP, but all over India, observes Amulya Ganguli.
To beat BJP, you either deny them a critical mass of Hindu vote or build a regional leader and party strong enough to protect their turf, observes Shekhar Gupta.
We need credible retellings of the times we have lived through, or the events in the immediate past that have shaped our today, says Mihir S Sharma
Ahead of the second phase of polls in the state, Banerjee's letter, which was released by the Trinamool Congress on Wednesday, seeks to drum up support from opposition leaders by stating how non-BJP states have suffered due to the saffron party led Centre's actions.
'Look at what happened to the BJP in that India Shining episode in 2004.'
Telugu Desam Party chief and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu is coordinating the meeting. He has invited the leaders of all the non-BJP parties.
Leaders of a number of opposition parties on Tuesday met twice after which they decided to put up a united fight for the post.
Most of the parties supported 'one nation one election', says defence minister Rajnath Singh.
Having reclaimed power in Uttar Pradesh after 15 years, the Bharatiya Janata Party will now turn its focus to the states where it has been traditionally weak but which are critical to determine its fortune in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls as its national executive meet begins in Odisha on Saturday.
