'Modi 3.0 will have more balanced policies like one saw in Modi's first term.'
Many were hoping that with Vajpayee's NDA gone, there would be a return to the Congress normal. Nobody was prepared for the opposite. Sonia Gandhi was sceptical. This became the only issue over which Manmohan Singh took on his party bosses and risked his government. Politically, it was riskier than the 1991 reform, recalls Shekhar Gupta.
Attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party's manifesto containing contentious Hindutva issues, Congress President Sonia Gandhi said their 'communal agenda' was a 'grave threat' to the country's unity and integrity.
'As we enter 2025, it must be acknowledged that there is a convergence of capital, influential people (from business and politics) and technology deciding the destiny of others in the name of pride, patriotism, nationalism, nation building, all of it thinly veiled disguises for personal profit and glory,' asserts Shyam G Menon.
Claiming that the ruling party is using the country's premier investigating agency to fulfill its "political agenda", senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Nitin Gadkari, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley skipped a lunch hosted by the prime minister on Friday
For the BJP, the RSS' organisational heft is a prized asset, considering the slew of elections it faces this year, ahead of the Lok Sabha election in 2024.
Hearing Gandhi's petition on Tuesday, Justice S V Kotwal of the high court noted that it raises some "important questions of law."
The work we have done in the south and the northeast over the last 10 years under Prime Minister Modi's leadership, we have started getting results of the same, he said.
BJP sources said a meeting of the National Democratic Alliance is expected to take place soon to highlight its growing strength and to dispel the impression that the departure of some of its oldest allies such as the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, Shiromani Akali Dal and the Janata Dal-United have the left the saffron party without a major partner.
The party is looking at Amit Shah's visit to Tamil Nadu and the PM's to Sri Lanka to boost its expansions efforts in the state for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, reports Archis Mohan.
'When economic policies were attacked by people on his own side, he went ahead despite all the criticisms in the coalition, within the party and the Sangh Parivar.'
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the Union Budget on Tuesday as the Monsoon Session of Parliament gets underway next week with the united opposition set to corner the National Democratic Alliance government on issues ranging from the NEET paper leak case and railway safety.
'The BJP's defining character is Hindutva. The party's political strategy is based on a combination of Hindutva+Development.'
Besides representatives of Facebook, the committee has asked representatives of the ministry of electronics and information technology to remain present on September 2 to discuss on the subject of "safeguarding citizens' rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms including special emphasis on women security in the digital space".
The political slugfest has been going on between the two, which started after Tharoor's announcement that the panel would like to hear from Facebook about the report published in Wall Street Journal claiming that the social media platform ignored applying its hate-speech rules to politicians of the ruling party in India.
With challenges such as raising the legal age of marriage for women, combating malnutrition among women and children, and addressing women's safety issues, the new ministers face a formidable agenda.
'Had it not been for the complicity of the state and Biren Singh's leadership, these riots would not have spread this far and for so long.'
'What matters is policies, not personalities like Priyanka, Rahul or Modi.'
RSS General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale met with the leadership of the UP BJP, including Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, state BJP President Bhupendra Chaudhary and state BJP General Secretary (Organisation) Dharmapal.
Despite the upbeat statement, the party is expected to reflect on what caused the sharp fall in its numbers. It is expected to win about 240 seats against the 303 it had won in 2019.
Speculation about Ajit Pawar's next political move started swirling last week when he suddenly cancelled his scheduled meetings and also made comments which were seen as being soft on the Bharatiya Janata Party and Chief Minister Eknath Shinde's camp.
'Modi's charisma and appeal is unparalleled.' 'Yogi has his own appeal and people connect.' 'He is seen as trustworthy, hardworking and honest.' 'People feel that these qualities are both common to Yogi and Modi.'
A controversy erupted on Tuesday after the opposition parties tagged a video of DMK leader A Raja purportedly showing him making remarks that India has never been a nation, but a subcontinent with diverse practices and cultures, prompting strong response from the BJP which described the comments as a call for 'balkanisation' of the the country and demanded for his arrest.
The inaugural Sangamam turned out to be a political Hindutva function than a gathering on the Hindu religion, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Sunday's denial of Rajya Sabha ticket to Union minister indicates that an end game to the JD-U-BJP rift may be in sight.
The BJP seems wanting to return to a 'Tamil Hindutva' agenda for elections in Tamil Nadu, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
Senior state leaders of the two parties pointed to propping up of the "new set of leaders not having much political stature" and lack of communication for the failure to reconcile differences.
Banerjee fended off a spirited challenge by the BJP in West Bengal with a landslide victory for her party on Sunday, bagging a third consecutive term.
"Give up arms and come for talks or our forces will hunt you down," the home minister said in election rallies in Jammu and Kashmir.
Noting that he fully respects the Supreme Court order on electoral bonds, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said the scheme was introduced to end black money in politics and added that it should have been improved rather than scrapped.
Uddhav Thackeray claimed the new Narendra Modi government at the Centre, which was sworn in on June 9, will collapse and will be replaced by an INDIA bloc dispensation.
'The 2024 general elections proved that UP is not Gujarat.'
The BJP has been inducting leaders from the NCP and the Congress since the last few months to expand its footprint in the regions where the party lacks organisational base.
If Kerala wants to sustain its room for independent thinking and talk back to Delhi when needed, it should put its finances in order. Or - if one takes the North East example - Kerala's political posturing may end up commensurate with its financial dependence on others, suggests Shyam G Menon.
On his condition of resolving farmers' issues, the BJP leader said Singh did not talk about ending the farmers' agitation.
Pandey, who stepped down as the state police chief less than a week ago, however, insisted that he had walked down to the state headquarters of the Janata Dal-United, headed by the chief minister, to "thank" Kumar for the trust reposed in him by the latter.
Another issue on the party's agenda is the expansion of the ruling NDA, which has seen steady depletion in the recent years with traditional BJP allies like the Janata Dal-United and Akali Dal leaving the grouping.
In a veiled reference to West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said he cannot speak in favour of someone who wants to finish him politically and his party in the state.
The BJP has dropped C T Ravi, a leader from Karnataka, Dilip Saikia, a Lok Sabha MP from Assam, as its general secretaries, and Vinod Sonkar, Harish Dwivedi, both Lok Sabha MPs from Uttar Pradesh, and Sunil Deodhar as secretaries.
It is hard to escape the feeling that solving the problems of 2020 and 2021 will require something special which at the moment is not on view, observes Aakar Patel.
