Attacking Narendra Modi for using Lord Ram's picture on the stage backdrop at a rally, Janata Dal-United chief Sharad Yadav on Tuesday charged that Ram Temple issue was BJP's hidden agenda and the party has chosen Varanasi as the epicentre to spread communalism in the country.
He had uploaded a video on social media in which he demanded that the Maharashtra government make travel arrangements for migrants, who are stranded due to the coronavirus-enforced lockdown and want to go back to their native places.
'The Congress-JD-S alliance will be intact for the next three years, for sure.'
She further accused the EC of being biased and 'wrongly favouring' BJP leaders.
'In the next two years, we might see a new kind of realignment across India.' 'I don't see political alliances working against the BJP until an alternative political agenda is created.'
A local court has issued notice to Bharatiya Janata Party MP Varun Gandhi asking him to appear in court in connection with a 2009 hate speech case.
It is this new Muslim who is not burdened by the Pakistan guilt, who is ready to fight it out for the rights enshrined under the Constitution, and who is not defensive about Muslim identity that the BJP and the Sangh Parivar are out to crush, argues Mohd Asim.
The Delhi BJP, on the other hand, alleged that one Amrik Singh Micky, who was present at the Red Fort and later posted his picture with provocative slogan in Facebook, was an AAP leader.
V Balachandran, former special secretary, cabinet secretariat, Government of India and a member of Ram Pradhan Committee on 26/11, talks to Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa on how Narendra Modi, if comes to power on Friday, should tackle terror.
Asma Khatoon said it is not biryani that has attracted women to the protest at Shaheen Bagh, while holding that such vilification campaigns will have no effect on the agitation.
'Political parties can play up different ideological aspects to fit individual voters.' 'For example, a party may present itself as business-friendly to one individual while it could target another voter by harping on communal fears.'
Contending that communalism was a bigger a threat to India than corruption, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid, on Monday asked Anna Hazare why he and his campaign managers did not do more to involve Muslims in their anti-graft movement.
The pressure on Delhi mellowed Lucknow's ruling dispensation's initial enthusiasm to try and draw electoral mileage from the developments in Afghanistan.
While the Congress will contest the Jammu and Udhampur Lok Sabha seats, National Conference will fight from Srinagar.
The BJP president hit out at Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, alleging that the maximum killings of BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workers have taken place in the latter's home district.
Meraj Khalid Noor, who is popularly known as Bihar's Osama bin Laden for his uncanny resemblance with slain most-wanted Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, has said that he will contest the Lok Sabha polls against the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from Varanasi.
'I do spew poison against Modi and his communalism. I am deeply depressed that India is on the edge of reaching where Germany was in January 1937 when Hitler came to power through a democratic election,' Mani Shankar Aiyar tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar.
AMU has once again been pulled into a crossfire of crass political opportunism. In these post-truth times, that the university also had political stirrings not subscribing to the Muslim League is chosen to be forgotten, says Mohammad Sajjad.
Religious minorities in India have been subjected to "violent attacks, forced conversions" and 'Ghar Wapsi' campaigns by groups like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh after the Modi government assumed power in 2014, a US Congress-established panel has said.
'The Congress has gone bankrupt, as it is going to make a person who is out on bail in corruption case its president'
'As his close associate Som Pal told me, "Mandal was never V P Singh's brainchild. It was a Janata Party commitment he inherited".' 'He would have done it anyway at some point, but the specific timing of his decision was dictated entirely by political exigency -- his government was threatened.' 'It also turned out to be a game changer in Indian politics.'
Many anticipate that by the 2021 assembly elections in West Bengal, the BJP may come to power, says Mohammad Sajjad.
'It is a sad day when social activists, environmental campaigners, anti-corruption workers are singled out as anti-nationals and then criminalised.'
Amnesty highlighted poll-related violence in the lead up to the May 2014 General Elections, communal clashes and failure of consultation on corporate projects as key concerns.
The combined Left parties drew a blank in the polls to the assembly which they had run with an overwhelming majority for 34 long years, with their vote share dwindling to a mere 5.47 per cent in 2021.
A New York-based Sikh rights group, which had earlier campaigned against Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, has launched an online petition campaign urging President Barack Obama to cancel invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat.
Hitting the campaign trail in Uttar Pradesh, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday made a scathing attack on BJP by describing its ideology as against the composite culture of the state and said the party had always "divided the country."
The Bharatiya Janata Party President said that it is difficult to make a guess who will win in Punjab.
Can the Election Commission step up to the plate and exert its Constitutional powers with non-partisan conviction, asks Mitali Saran.
'It will be a grand alliance where they could get the Muslims, Dalits and Yadavs in one camp and pose a serious challenge to whatever the BJP might conjure up in the run-up to the 2019 election.'
Narendra Modi's elevation as Bharatiya Janata Party's campaign chief for 2014 Lok Sabha elections has strengthened his political legitimacy after struggling to shed the "communal" tag that has haunted the Gujarat chief minister since the 2002 riots.
With exit polls forecasting the National Democratic Alliance staging a comeback to power, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Wednesday said his party could not be written off and it would fight for "politics of secularism" whether it forms the government or sits in the opposition.
'Mamata has used minorities only as her vote bank.' 'In her entire election campaign Mamata did not utter a single sentence against the RSS.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday came out in defence of Amit Shah, saying Narendra Modi's close aide, who was censured by the Election Commission for controversial poll speeches, did not violate the model code of conduct.
Union minister Jairam Ramesh is back to doing what he does best: working out the logistics for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, who spearheaded Congress' Lok Sabha election campaign in the state, attributed the party's rout to some policies of the central government.
The party will launch its 'Sevagram Se Sangram' likening its fight against Modi-led government to the freedom struggle against the British.
Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh will be over before any action would be taken against BJP president Amit Shah and MP Yogi Adityanath for their alleged hate speeches, says Sharat Pradhan
'Mumbai's killings in January 1993 came at the tail end of two outbursts of vicious communal violence, whereas today, it's peacetime in a 'new India'.' 'At that time, the perpetrators warned onlookers to keep their mouths shut.' 'Today, the perpetrators take videos of their attacks, such is their confidence.' 'The mobs have succeeded in terrorising an entire community and indeed, all those dealing in the transport of cattle, whatever their religion,' says Jyoti Punwani.
'The Godse controversy may have helped Kamal Haasan reach out to a larger audience, both inside the state and outside, coming as it does when the main campaign for elections 19 is over and only those in the four assembly bypoll constituencies are drudging along,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
