She called on the people of the state to ensure this election is not about Modi or any other leader, irrespective of their party.
For the Mizo people, tribal and family identity are important. But so are jobs, farmers' access to markets, roads, and health facilities for a young population where drugs are a big affliction.
Such a course would require a Constitutional Amendment, requiring a two-thirds majority in both Houses of Parliament. Even assuming that the INDIA combine comes to power at the Centre next year, a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha could way off the mark for them, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Stalin still enjoys a lot of sympathy and empathy as someone wishing well for the state, but not full-throated support as in 2019 and 2021, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
CM Stalin has a procedural problem. Nominating new ministers would entail his having to seek formal permission from governor R N Ravi. Stalin does not want to interact with the person of this governor, as far as possible, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supremo Jayalalithaa's electioneering using helicopter to criss-cross Tamil Nadu has become a poll plank for opposition parties in the state as the campaign gathers momentum.
Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday appealed to the opposition for the unanimous passage of the women's reservation bill and said shortcomings, if any, can be rectified at a later date.
The government on Tuesday announced a Rs 200 per cylinder cut in prices of domestic cooking gas as it looked to counter the cheaper LPG promise of the Congress in upcoming assembly elections in states like Madhya Pradesh.
Women politicians bring to politics and policy a sensitivity that most of their male counterparts, at least until a generation back, lacked.
Already, there is a feeling even within the BJP's AIADMK ally that the BJP is overdoing things on the ED/I-T front, as corruption is not an election issue in the state -- as long as the people are otherwise not excessively unhappy with the governing party, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
It is not much of an issue just now, but it could become one if the idea of caste census captures socio-political imagination, going beyond electoral tags and identities, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Siddaramaiah was openly taking on the BJP's communal agenda, which very few non-BJP politicians do.'
With the Election Commission's announcement of the schedule for elections to the legislative assemblies of Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland, the heat has once again taken a good track. While the stage for the political battle is being set, authorities seem more concerned of the security aspects
'Elections in Madhya Pradesh have so far largely avoided freebies.' 'But this time both the Congress and BJP are making such announcements.'
Did the fear of central agencies probing scams involving NCP leaders that forced these politicians to jump ship?
By comparing I.N.D.IA. with banned terror outfits, Modi has exhibited the kind of nervousness never ever associated with him even at the height of the Gujarat riots, and certainly since his prime ministerial days, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Congress leader Sachin Pilot on Thursday expressed happiness that the Congress party has taken cognisance of the issues raised by him about welfare of youth and corruption under the previous Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan, and asserted the party will contest the assembly polls unitedly to secure a massive victory.
The campaign will reach a high decibel level next week when BJP state chief K Annamalai is expected to take up a blitzkrieg campaign against the ruling DMK.
The Bhartiya Janata Party, consciously deciding to steer clear of its close association with the Ram temple, switched gears, and said that the issue would not remain a part of their political agenda anymore. But at the same time, called for all communities to join hands to pave bay for building a temple at the site.
SP president Akhilesh Yadav and ally RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary are unlikely to participate in the Yatra due to "preoccupation" with their party programmes, their party leaders said.
The rising pitch of road shows and long rallies with hectoring pitches seem to have exhausted and numbed the audiences, rather than motivating them to vote for the party, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
"He is lodged in the prison in connection with a rape case and sections of the Pocso Act. Rinku is not a physiotherapist," the sources said.
ndependent of the political fallout, which Stalin has sought to arrest through the withdrawal of the measures as fast as they were introduced, there are concerns about the way those decisions came to be taken, without adequate application of mind, not in official terms but in political and electoral contexts, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Gandhi, then a newly appointed Congress chief, had staked claim to form the government at the Centre after the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had lost the vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha on April 17, 1999.
The case of the two Shiv Sena factions for legitimacy and the party symbol, 'Bow and Arrow', is now before the Election Commission. Whichever way the EC findings go, the other can be expected to move the Supreme Court. They would need a final verdict before the parliamentary polls, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Congress and BJP are apprehensive that AAP might eat into their votes among the Patel community, Kshatriyas, a section of minorities, and Dalits, thus delivering a fatal blow in the closely-contested seats. But the local BJP is elated over the entry of AIMIM as there will be a contender for minority votes apart from the Congress in seats like Bhuj and Mandvi, which have considerable Muslim electorate.
'They are not tom-tomming what a great thing the Supreme Court decision is.' 'If they say it was a great thing, the public will react because people suffered and are still suffering.'
'The biggest problem that faces the Opposition in Gujarat is just a day or two before voting is scheduled, Modiji goes on a spree of emotional appeals.' 'That process has been set in motion much earlier this time in Gujarat.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party, for whom the temple town sharpened its Hindutva plank, is facing a challenge particularly from the Samajwadi Party in the ongoing state polls.
Former West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar was on Thursday sworn in as the 14th Vice President of India.
A new Congress leader may make an electoral impact by his very presence. Congress voters who had moved away from the party, after being influenced by the BJP's 'family rule' campaign, can now return with a certain moral satisfaction, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The son of a farmer killed in the Lakhimpur Kheri incident allegedly involving Union minister Ajay Mishra Teni's son says he has declined the offer of the Samajwadi Party and the Congress to contest in the assembly polls and instead has asked them to field him in the 2024 Parliamentary election against the minister himself.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi also decided to convene a 'Chintan Shivir', a brainstorming session from May 13-15 in Udaipur.
'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 magnificent Krishna Janambhoomi temple in Mathura was a recurrent theme for the ruling BJP in the run-up to the assembly polls, reports Nitin Kumar.
Now, the chief minister is under pressure to make good his promise after the December 4 incident in Nagaland's Mon, where 14 people were killedAFSPA has eclipsed all other achievements of the Biren Singh government.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday invoked the "exodus" of Hindus from Kairana a few years back, telling people in the western Uttar Pradesh town that those who shoot at traders now will be dispatched to the "next world".
The Western world keeps talking, ratcheting up sanctions, the only thing it can do. The Russians march on to Kyiv and capture Zelensky and key members of his government as part of their 'de-Nazification' drive, predicts Shreekant Sambrani.
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