'We are passing through a very historical moment. The UP election next year and the Lok Sabha election of 2019 will decide the course of India.' 'Maybe the unlettered will save India again because they have inherited a different India and a different idea of India,' says eminent social scientist Achyut Yagnik.
''The Congress has forgotten how to mobilise people on political issues,' says Aakar Patel.
Former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda, who is under investigation for amassing wealth running into billions of rupees, is learnt to have appointed Justice Y R Meena -- a retired chief justice of the Gujarat high court -- as his legal advisor.
The question is no longer whether he will win 2019; it's what he will do with the new status, says Shekhar Gupta.
The complaints were filed by Bharatiya Janata Party leaders for allegedly calling Union Minister Amit Shah a "murder accused" and saying that "all thieves have Modi as surname".
'I fight for anyone who is poor, marginalised or victimised.' 'If a Dalit factory owner is inflicting atrocities on his Brahmin worker, then I will fight for the poor Brahmin.'
'The politics of Goa is moving around a sole entity, which is land.'
Narendra Rawat, an 'arrest-happy' Congress leader, is expected to launch a fair amount of political tamasha against his rival, Narendra Modi, in Vadodara.
The Bharatiya Janata Party appeared to cede ground in Uttar Pradesh where Samajwadi Party was leading on six of the 11 Assembly seats where bypolls were held while it was neck and neck with Congress in Gujarat and behind in Rajasthan, exactly four months after it swept the three states in Lok Sabha elections.
She said the BJP needs a fresh face in the state before the 2017 elections.
For a party that has adopted the successful social re-engineering model from Gujarat, Rajasthan and across the rest of the 'Hindi belt' over the past decades, Tamil Nadu continues to remain a tricky customer, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Amid an all-out attack by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Election Commission on Friday said permission to Narendra Modi's rally in Varanasi city was denied after the Gujarat police said the venue was not suitable but regretted the "delay" in conveying the decision to the party concerned.
'I reached Bhopal the day after the gas tragedy; the smell was still in the air. It was a professional hazard but I was not scared.'
"Rai is a grass root worker, who is a sitting Congress MLA and has fought a number of elections successfully and he will be the best candidate in Varanasi", party spokesman Randeep Surjewala told reporters announcing the candidature.
Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah along with Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and other party leaders were booed off stage as the members of Hardik Patel's Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti created ruckus and vanadalised furniture at a programme to felicitate Patel leaders in Surat.
The Congress president offered prayers at the Churva Hanuman Mandir on the Lucknow-Rae Bareli road hours after landing in the state capital where enthusiastic party workers greeted him with garlands.
In a shot in the arm for the Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiromani Akali Dal ahead of Punjab assembly polls, their alliance on Tuesday defeated Congress in the Chandigarh municipal corporation election in which demonetisation had emerged as a key issue.
Congress Vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday reiterated that the Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi was pro-industrialists and did not bother about poor farmers.
The Ahmedabad-based company is now a part of the publicity department of ISRO's Mission-to-Moon project.
'One investor told us one leader in Gujarat had sent him to Konkan to buy land.' 'How did these people come to know about this project in advance when locals didn't know?' 'It means those who are running the country are somewhere interested in selling the country's resources to private businessmen.'
'When it vanishes as a national force (meaning when it can no longer get sufficient votes to hold onto its symbol, the hand) it will not have been the first large Indian party to die,' says Aakar Patel.
The entry of Kohli, a local businessman, into the BJP came a day after the prime minister rejected perceptions of a 'Modi wave' in the country. Lok Sabha elections in Punjab are due in one phase on April 30.
'Our honourable CM is so shameless that she will say the state is among the safest for women.'
No BJP president is powerful when the party is in power. Amit Shah is completely dependent on Narendra Modi's clout. He has a protective political immunity and everyone knows its source, says Bharat Bhushan
'There's nothing in the 2019 campaign air, the chunavi hawa that tells you it's a wave election, for anyone,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
Pakistan has taken too much of a chance with Pulwama - with the wrong government in India, and at the wrong time.
Around 40,000 Delhi Police personnel, 190 coys (companies) of Central Armed Police Forces and 19,000 Home Guards have been deployed for smooth conduct of election in the national capital, officials said.
Have we been allowed to forget Partition? Isn't Partition the reason many Hindus cannot bring themselves to trust Muslims? So many Muslims born after 1947 have told me with anguish: "How long will we be blamed for Partition?" notes Jyoti Punwani.
The Congress on Sunday said it will give a "good fight" to Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narendra Modi on Varanasi seat and did not rule out fielding an outsider.
The key to job creation is to increase labour participation - draw more people into the labour force and to provide them formal jobs in the organised sectors. Self-employment is not job creation, says, Mahesh Vyas.
Hardik Patel, the 21-year-old politician who has been grabbing headlines as leader of the 40-day agitation by the Patel Community, addressed a massive rally in Ahmedabad on Tuesday where he demanded reservations under the Other Backward Caste quota for the community.
'The autonomy of essential institutions is clearly under question as the Modi government seeks to influence them politically.' 'The credibility of institutions such as the EC, the CBI, the CVC, the UPSC, the RBI, media, and universities, has been compromised,' notes Zoya Hasan, the distinguished political thinker.
'He is putting India first, setting examples for others. This is how a prime minister should be.'
Dubbing the next election a choice between governance and development on one side and chaos on the other, the prime minister cited the example of Karnataka, where the Congress-Janata Dal(Secular) alliance 'stole the mandate' to form government with 'development taking a back seat'.
Advocating for Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, yoga guru Ramdev on Monday accused the Congress of creating economic and social anarchy, and said only Modi can save the country from corruption.
'Extravagant new promises can buy him time, but far from solving the problem, they compound the risk.' 'His main alternative is to stress not aspirations, but resentments.' 'He has already de-emphasised aspirational appeals: Nothing has been heard for over two years of the coming of achhe din,' points out James Manor.
"The 2017 state election results in India demonstrate broad-based popular support for the Indian government's policy agenda and will facilitate the implementation of further reforms, a credit positive for the sovereign," Moody's said in a statement.
'Bangladeshi Muslims want to increase their population in India.' 'They have made colonies in India.' 'Rohingyas are doing the same.' 'This has to stop.'
Other than providing Narendra Modi a sweetner ahead of the BJP's national executive meet in Goa, there are no major trends to glean from the recent by-election results, says Seema Mustafa.
Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal has made it abundantly clear that he would contest against Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from Varanasi.
