It will be in Modi's interest to reinvent his party, read the writing on the wall that voters wrote, and move ahead. He has little choice now. The country is watching, asserts Ramesh Menon.
The assembly bypolls in Bihar and Maharashtra, scheduled for November 3, are set to be the first electoral test of the popularity of the respective state governments after a change in the political alignment.
All 41 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Telangana were elected unopposed on Friday after the biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently.
The biggest challenge will be to convert his regime into a coalition of minds. But given the fact that he is instinctively an authoritarian leader and supporter of the hard Hindutva line, the survival of his government will depend on his ability to balance between his heart and mind, between instinct and pragmatism, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times.
In the midst of crucial assembly elections in five states, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda organised a huge rally in Haryana on November 10 in what is being seen as muscle flexing at the party leadership in terms of showing his following in the state. Renu Mittal reports.
The five-time former Punjab chief minister died at a private hospital in Mohali near Chandigarh on Tuesday, nine days after he was admitted there with breathing problems. He was 95.
Praying for those who lost their lives in the incident, Kejriwal said the assembly polls in Gujarat should be held immediately.
The latest parole to the Dera chief, who is serving a 20-year jail term for raping his two disciples, comes three months after he was granted a similar parole.
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.
According to experts, Bishnoi had been sulking since the Congress ignored him for the post of its Haryana unit chief during a revamp earlier this year.
Now, every state election -- first up, Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand later this year, then Delhi in January and Bihar in September next year -- will be seen by his followers for evidence of his recovery, and by rivals of sharpening decline, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday asked the Election Commission to take serious note of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda clearing the land deal between Robert Vadra and DLF, alleging that it was done hastily as the Congress faced "certain defeat" in the October 15 Haryana assembly polls.
The Punjab government has declared a holiday on Thursday as a mark of respect to the former chief minister.
The 'Khela Hobe' slogan will reverberate across India in the coming days, said Trinamool Congress MLA Madan Mitra on Saturday.
Over 65 Union ministers are likely to take oath, going by the visual of the meeting Modi held with his likely council of ministers.
Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh said like other states, the BJP started the game of using money power, power of the government and muscle power to destabilise the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh but has failed.
The BJP retained power in MP in the November 17 polls emphatically winning 163 seats in the 230-member assembly, leaving the Congress a distant second with 66 seats.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Since 2018, the BJP has failed to win a majority in any of the state polls. It lost power in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in 2018 followed by Maharashtra and Jharkhand. The party managed to form government in Karnataka by winning over opposition MLAs and in Haryana by allying with a regional party.
A recent pre-election survey suggests that AAP may win 53 seats in the 117-member Punjab assembly and reduce the Congress to just 43.
Lok Sabha elections result of 2019 tells us the Modi wave has only consolidated, instead of waning.
Yadav, who hails from Mahendergarh district, joined the JJP in New Delhi in the presence of its leader Chautala.
It also pledged to give interest free crop loan of up to Rs 3 lakh to farmers.
These 22 farm bodies were among 32 farmer organisations in Punjab which participated in the over-a-year-long protest against the three central farm laws.
Amid a plethora of Bharatiya Janata Party bigwigs, Manohar Lal Khattar and his council of ministers took the oath of office at Panchkula on Sunday.
'You have to work for the development of the people; stay connected with them; be available for your voters so they can come to you for redressal of their problems and don't rely on the brand equity of the central government.'
At the time of ticket distribution, the top BJP leadership preferred the turncoats over its loyal workers.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led party will go solo in the upcoming assembly elections in Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand and Delhi, leaders who were part of JD-U's National Executive meet said.
As Modi takes guard for a third term with trusted and seasoned hands around him, the BJP is hopeful that he will prove his detractors wrong and continue to fuel the party's expansion horizontally and vertically with his inventive policies in government and new set of ideas in politics with the core of Hindutva, development and welfarism remaining intact.
Polling to elect new assemblies in Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh began early Tuesday morning, in the first crucial test of popularity for major political parties after the Lok Sabha polls six months ago.
Political observers lauded the SP's choices in fielding several non-Yadav and Scheduled Caste candidates, the party's alliance with the Congress, and Rahul Gandhi's campaign around the danger to the Constitution if the BJP won a big majority.
The fate of 1,351 candidates will be sealed by 1.63 crore voters in high-stakes multi-cornered contest in Haryana which goes to polls on Wednesday with top guns including the kin of the three famous 'Lals' battling it out in the state.
While 67 per cent of India's population is 39 years old or younger, states are governed by chief ministers who are 70 or older.
Voting began on Thursday in the by-election to seven assembly constituencies in six states -- a contest symbolic of the fierce turf war between the Bharatiya Janata Party and regional parties.
The Congress on Sunday demanded a thorough probe into Siddique's murder and said Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his deputy Devendra Fadnavis, who holds home portfolio, should take moral responsibility for law and order "failure" and resign.
Bishnoi said the Congress has deviated from its ideology and is no longer what it was during Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi's time.
12 of the 20 MPs with the highest winning margins in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls have not been re-nominated by their parties for the 2024 general elections.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
In Maharashtra, Bhagat Singh Koshyari has done pretty much as he liked, observes Aditi Phadnis.
