Tharoor said there could be a surprise result in the election next year as there is an opposition coalition and there are chances of the INDIA alliance coming to power at the Centre by trouncing the BJP-led NDA in the general elections.
The Bharatiya Janata Party swept Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh on Sunday inflicting a resounding defeat on the Congress to tighten its stranglehold in the Hindi heartland, in a big boost for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and setting the tone for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
'Commentators have said that dealing with allies as equals will make Modi more sensitive.' 'Remember that the people Modi is dealing with are equally autocratic in their own lairs.' 'Further, Modi always has handy the threat of dissolving Parliament and calling for fresh polls.' 'Most of his own party, and certainly his allies and opponents having blown their budgets of efforts and resources in the just concluded elections, have no stomach for this.' 'They are all greatly looking forward to the loaves and fishes of office on offer.' 'That gives Modi an unbeatable advantage in any push-comes-to-shove situation,' explains Shreekant Sambrani.
'Congress leaders don't believe in themselves and in the potential of the party.' 'Unless they have faith in themselves, only then will the public have faith in them.'
Rahul is likely to emerge as the lone candidate in the fray and decks have been cleared for his election as the Congress president, succeeding his mother Sonia Gandhi, who has held the post for 19 years in a row now.
According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
A string of populist promises, including extension of the free ration scheme announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Mahadev betting app issue and the Hindutva card are among key factors that have catapulted the Bharatiya Janata Party to power in Chhattisgarh after five years.
The central election authority of the Congress met and finalised the initial program of the process.
He was trolled during the Lok Sabha poll campaign, but despite the tactics by his rivals, action hero Suresh Gopi rose to national stardom in cinema style on June 4, winning the Thrissur seat on a BJP ticket and scripting history for the saffron party in Kerala.
Congress sitting MLA Saleh Mohammad, is hoping to buck the trend of anti-incumbency in the seat, and believes people will vote for his development work and not along religious lines.
Counting of votes will be held on Sunday in assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Telangana in what is seen as a semi-final contest ahead of the general elections in less than six months.
'The Congress is trying to cover up their anti-incumbency by highlighting the Dalit CM factor.'
With the assembly poll results in three states being a disappointment for the Congress, some rumblings have begun among the constituents of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) ahead of their meeting on December 6, with many leaders alleging that the grand old party ignored others, but was unable to win elections on its own.
Droupadi Murmu scripted history on Thursday by becoming India's first tribal President in the one-sided contest, defeating Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha.
Counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections has begun across states and Union Territories, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar told PTI.
Of the 20,831 voters in this assembly constituency, an overwhelming majority of around 18,000 are not tribals.
Naturally, the West Bengal chief minister is not leaving anything to chance, reports Ishita Ayan Dutt.
While people voted in a fifth round that will set the tone as this election rounds into the straight, and while Modi on the stump chews the cud of personal grievances and hackneyed promises that have long since passed their use-by date, there is a rogue wave rising -- what damage it will do, we will know 16 days from today, observes Prem Panicker.
In a veiled warning to Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange who has announced a march to Mumbai, Ajit Pawar said nobody will be allowed to take law into his hands.
'Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Bengal can be the game changers of 2024.'
'The longevity of the government is a doubt for me because when the going gets tough, there could a be a point in time where there might be pressure, from within the party or from the allies.'
The ruling Congress on Wednesday swept the urban body polls in Punjab, winning six municipal corporations, emerging as the largest party in the seventh and bagging most of the 109 municipal council and nagar panchayats.
Stocks of public sector undertakings (PSUs) have been on fire in the past year as investors cheered an improvement in key operating metrics and embraced counters of these state-owned enterprises, analysts suggest. The S&P BSE PSU Index has gained over 90 per cent in the past year, rising much higher than the S&P BSE Sensex, which has rose nearly 19 per cent during this period, according to ACE Equity data. The BSE PSU Index, reports show, has delivered a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28 per cent (including dividends reinvestments) over five years and risen by almost 60 per cent in the past year.
The SP chief said, "If the Congress behaves like this, who will stand with them."
If Tamil Nadu voters preferred the DMK combine, it owed to the Modi-Annamalai combo's ideological battle which often crossed the line of political decency and also challenged 'Tamil pride', argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
Five-time MLA Parshottam Solanki, who is also known as 'Bhai' among his followers, has been winning Bhavnagar-Rural with a comfortable margin.
The Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee is keen to field senior leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from Varanasi and will soon send a proposal in this regard to the top leadership, said newly appointed party's state president Ajay Rai on Sunday.
Under the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme, close to 1 million apprentices will be trained in FY24.
'In the BJP I realised they are a different people with different mindset. They had a different ideology which was more rigid, and somewhere I was not comfortable.'
The results mark a defining turn in the fortunes of several regional satraps, especially in the BJP, around whom politics in their states have revolved for decades.
'If he has not achieved 'Congress mukt Bharat' even now, the question of his creating a 'DMK mukt Tamil Nadu' does not arise,' points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'When he was sidelined in the INDIA bloc, it was was the turning point because it badly hurt Nitish's ambition.' 'After that, he decided to damage INDIA by changing sides.'
With the assembly election results throwing up surprises, most exit polls got the outcome in Chhattisgarh and the scale of the Bharatiya Janata Party's win in Madhya Pradesh wrong.
'Every Indian who is concerned about the unity, integrity and the map of India should be worried about this growing divide.'
In focus are the assembly polls in 2026. From a BJP perspective, their attack on the ruling DMK, using the 'Hindutva' card, and Annamalai's targeting of both Dravidian majors on corruption has not worked, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The people who were assigned the role to look after the affairs of the Congress in Maharashtra have failed.'
The political heat in West Bengal has been giving the rising mercury levels serious competition since the high court order.
The Rahul-led campaign not only recorded its best assembly performance in the state since 1995, but also matched the BJP blow for blow in planning and execution.
In a new political alignment in poll-bound West Bengal, state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Tuesday announced the inclusion of newly formed Indian Secular Front (ISF) of Furfura Sharif cleric Abbas Siddiqui in the Left Front-Congress alliance.
A 10-member delegation of Trinamool Congress (TMC) had announced the dharna after meeting a full bench of the Election Commission (EC) to press their demand.
