'Slaughter of cows will be opposed by all parties in UP, Gujarat, Rajasthan, etc while it is different in Kerala, Goa and the north east.' 'Every national party adapts and take a view on various issues depending on the local situation and the feelings of the local people.' 'So, the Kerala BJP will look at each issue from the Kerala perspective, and not that of UP.'
The BJP in Kerala is likely to get a prize catch with popular Malayalam film actor Suresh Gopi joining the party soon.
The defeats in Maharashtra and Kerala are likely to lead to major realignments in the two states.
In his first visit to Chennai since becoming prime minister, Narendra Modi was given a rapturous welcome and hosted for lunch by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.
Rumblings within the Bharatiya Janata Party came to the fore on Wednesday night as the party decided to field L K Advani from Gandhinagar for Lok Sabha polls, angering the patriarch who wanted to shift to Bhopal in a reflection of his tensions with Narendra Modi.
Having a young, untested leader makes sense for the Tamil Nadu BJP. But the new state president's immediate concern will be to gain acceptance within the state unit that is still in the grip of those with a strong RSS background, says N Sathiya Moorthy
Actor-turned-politician Nusrat Jahan had herself married a person of another religion, businessman Nikhil Jain last year.
For the Congress to be taken seriously, it has to convince those around it that it could actually double its Lok Sabha seat share from the existing 52, and vote-share by a third more from the stagnating 20 per cent in 2014 and 2019, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The organisation established its electoral presence post-Independence in states such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Assam, with West Bengal being its main stronghold, but eight decades down the line, the party, now limited to just some pockets of the country, has no MP or MLA in its kitty.
'Every day, when I deliver milk, I talk to the families and find out what is happening in their lives.' 'That is how you get to know the real issues and find solutions.'
The split in the Congress in the state caused by K Karunakaran has also helped LDF maintain its winning spree.
The Hindutva social media continues to present the DMK especially as anti-god, anti-Hindu and anti-Brahmin. The strategy did not work in the past, it has not worked in the present, and would not work in the future, as a massive vote-getter, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
She called on all "progressive forces" to join hands to fight the "oppressive BJP regime".
'Even if the anti-Modi 'Mahagatbandhan' gets a majority there is simply no way that Nitish Kumar can ensure even a stable government, leave alone a good -- clean, development-oriented -- government,' argues T V R Shenoy.
More and more Congressmen are breaking their silence and coming out in the open blaming party vice president Rahul Gandhi for the poll drubbing. Renu Mittal reports.
Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi held a virtual meeting on Friday evening with leaders of 19 Opposition parties, including the chief ministers of some Opposition-ruled states, amid efforts to boost Opposition unity and evolve a common strategy against the National Democratic Alliance government.
Governor Banwarilal Purohit administered the oath of office and secrecy to 68-year old Stalin, for whom this would be the first stint as CM
The Congress units in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the only two states where the party is in government on its own, have passed resolutions that Gandhi be made the party's president.
'Amit Shah was, briefly, a stockbroker before devoting himself to politics. By instinct or training, he knows the value of keeping blue chips in one's portfolio.'
The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Monday ruled out any change in leadership following the poll debacle in West Bengal and Kerala as top leaders met in New Delhi to analyse what went wrong for the party in the assembly elections.
Former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Wednesday sought quashing of the trial court order to lodge FIR against her in a graft case, contending in the Delhi high court that such proceedings cannot be continued against a Governor.
The BJP continuing to look at the Dravidian polity through the religious prism has not worked in Tamil Nadu whereas it has yielded political and electoral results across much of the rest of the country, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
BJP president Amit Shah is chairing the meeting attended by top party leaders from across the country.
The term of the Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura legislative assemblies is ending on March 6, March 13 and March 14 respectively.
Analysts say markets to be impacted by monsoon, inflation trajectory.
The first bench refused to restrain the media, both electronic and print, from publishing the oral observations of the judges relating the role of EC in holding elections to four states and the Union Territory of Puducherry in the country during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The passing of the GST bill and the failure of India to acquire NSG membership is set to rule the agenda in Parliament.
'It is sad that Kerala had so many Covid patients which is primarily due to the mismanagement of the Left government.' 'The technical committee was full of CPI-M leaders who happen to have medical degrees with no experience in public health.' 'They were advising the CM and we are paying for those mistakes.'
Yechury has dropped enough hints that a fight is in the offing at the Hyderabad conclave in April, where any member may move an amendment to the draft on the party's electoral line. Archis Mohan reports.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also took a dig at the Congress president Rahul Gandhi, saying some people grow in designation but shrink in stature.
Coming as it does only months ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Chennai meet could provide the launch pad for a national alternative to the BJP-NDA, and MK Stalin may be given the credit for getting it going, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Strategy or confusion? The Tamil Nadu BJP has many reasons to feel let down by Prime Minister Modi's whistlestop tour to the state on Tuesday, says R Ramasubramanian.
Women, if addressed properly, have the potential to become a decisive factor in elections.
While the CPI-M in a statement after the secretariat on Friday maintained that Balakrishnan, who is also a Polit Bureau member, had sought leave for further treatment which had been accepted, the leader of opposition in the state assembly Ramesh Chennithala dubbed the move as a delayed dawning of wisdom.
During his whirlwind election tour in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, also the United Progressive Alliance's chief interlocutor, tells Saubhadra Chatterji the government has its own way of moving against corruption:
India and Indians can ignore Pakistan, but that cannot be said of other nations in the neighbourhood, where New Delhi's 'Neighbourhood First' policy constantly reverberates. Four of the eight SAARC member-nations are Muslim -- Afghanistan and Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Maldives. The rulers decide the nation's India or anti-India policy in the first two, and street-opinion contributes to the same in the latter two, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Protests by various opposition parties have led to a near washout of both houses in Parliament.
Mayawati was outmanoeuvred by the BJP in the race for the Rajya Sabha in Uttar Pradesh just days after she helped the Samajwadi Party snatch two Lok Sbaha seats from the saffron party in bypolls.
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Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Wednesday vowed to take "revenge" for Tuesday's Naxal ambush in which 15 security personnel and a civilian were killed in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district, saying the attack could be an attempt to disrupt the Lok Sabha polls.
The Congress chief met senior United Democratic Front leaders, including Ramesh Chennithala and P K Kunhalikutty.
