2019 was the Bharatiya Janata Party's breakout year, when it stretched the boundaries of what was thought possible and ended up with 303 seats on its own steam. Now it is forced to play defence, on a pitch queered by too many variables, asserts Prem Panicker.
Governor Ram Naik and UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav greeted people on the occasion at Eidgah.
Under flak, Munde said the video clip, in which he was purportedly heard making the comments against Pankaja, was edited and fake. He claimed that his remarks were "distorted" to project him as a "villain" by his rivals to win elections.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
The counting was scheduled to start at 5 pm Friday, but it could not be taken up as the Bharatiya Janata Party approached the Election Commission alleging violation of rules by three MLAs of the state's ruling alliance of Maha Vikas Aghadi.
Sachdev's wife Divya said that before deboarding, her husband had "apologised" to the teenager to which she said it was "okay".
She said Bhide wanted her appointment but she told him that she was busy.
A 56-year-old man was arrested after the chopped body parts of his live-in partner were recovered from a flat in Maharashtra's Thane district, an official said on Thursday. A court has remanded the man, identified as Manoj Sane, in police custody till June 16, he said.
Sandeep Pandey salutes women who have contributed to social transformation in India after 1980.
Without naming Uddhav Thackeray, Shah, who was speaking at the launch of Marathi version of the booked 'Modi@20', also reiterated there was no agreement on sharing the chief minister's post in the run up to the 2019 assembly polls.
'She showed courage at every turn in her political career.'
Raking up the December 16 gang rape case and the infamous Tandoor murder case, Narendra Modi on Friday attacked Sonia Gandhi over the issue of security of women and said women are not even safe in the Congress.
'You (Modi) come here and don't even take the name of your Chief Minister (Basavaraj Bommai) and (B S) Yediyurappa (former CM). Your speeches are all about Narendra Modi'
Maharashtra Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar speaks to Prasanna Zore/Rediff.com.
'...it gets a survey report that they are going to lose elections.' 'The fear of losing elections will make them immediately conduct a caste census.'
Mumbai police, citing his suicide note, said the 1988-batch Indian Police Service officer took the extreme step 'out of frustration' due to his illness.
Soon after her comments on love-jihad, netizens dug out her old tweets in which she allegedly made controversial remarks against women and politicians.
By keeping the Sanatana Dharma row alive and adding the Ayodhya temple consecration scheduled for January 22 and adding the free darshan promise from four polled states to the entire country, the BJP may have a self-fulfilling concoction, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
A video showing author and philanthropist Sudha Murthy bowing before the leader of a right wing outfit in Maharashtra has gone viral, evoking sharp reactions.
The Dangal actor alleged, in an Instagram video, that a middle-aged man sitting behind her on the flight tried to molest her.
The Maharashtra State Human Rights Commission has initiated a probe into last week's raids by the Malwani police at hotels and a beach in Mumbai taking suo motu cognisance of the matter.
Rahul Gandhi on Thursday joined his sister Priyanka Gandhi in attacking Narendra Modi over snoopgate controversy, saying the Gujarat government has no regard for women as it gets their phones tapped.
Maharashtra Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) president Jayant Patil appeared before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Mumbai on Monday in a money laundering case linked to alleged financial irregularities in the now bankrupt financial services firm Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited (IL&FS), an official said.
A team of the National Commission for Women (NCW) on Sunday met the family members of a woman who died after being brutally raped, and also visited the crime spot as well as the hospital where she was treated, a police official said.
Congress leader Milind Deora on Wednesday urged Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde to scrap the delimitation and demarcation of ward boundaries in Mumbai, alleging that it was done to benefit only the Shiv Sena.
The Supreme Court on Friday referred the issue of the practice of excommunication in the Dawoodi Bohra community to a larger nine-judge bench.
'To summarise, PM Modi's failures in the last nine years can be categorised under 'durniti' (bad policies), 'anyay' (injustice) and - perhaps most importantly - 'badniyat' (ill intention)'
Speaking to reporters in Thane, Pawar accused the Narendra Modi government of failing to fulfil any of the promises made by it since 2014 including bringing 'acche din, connecting villages through the internet, and providing toilets, water, and power to every household'.
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.
Functioning from 8 am to 8 pm, it deals only with mental stress
The non-reporting of sexual assault against a minor despite knowledge is a "serious crime" and an attempt to shield the offenders, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday.
'Why potentially anybody, not only Muslims and Dalits, can be subjected to custodial death?'
The victim had suffered serious injuries in her private parts and there was a severe loss of blood in the incident. She was fighting for life at the Rajawadi Hospital since the early hours of Friday, an official said.
'As soon as the BJP feels they are going to lose power, they will publish the caste census data of 2011 and conduct the caste census of 2021.'
'You've got to be a doer to be re-elected.' 'You don't have to be a great communicator or an orator any more because voters want to see action and development on the ground.' 'And they want a doer rather than just an orator.'
All equipment from the Army which were part of the Republic Day celebrations are made-in-India, Chief of Staff Delhi Area Maj Gen Bhavnish Kumar had earlier said.
Parliamentarians and legislators across the country voted on Monday to elect India's 15th president, choosing between opposition pick Yashwant Sinha and National Democratic Alliance nominee Droupadi Murmu who is favoured to win the battle to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Testimony presented before the Bhima Korgaon Commission over the last two months reveals the background to the violence that broke out on January 1, 2018.
There are lessons for the Congress to learn from the Karnataka elections of how burying the hatchet among top leaders and not washing dirty linen in public can help, says Ramesh Menon.
Biennial elections are being held for 58 Rajya Sabha seats across several states and by-poll for one in Kerala.
