In seniority in the BJP leadership team, V K Malhotra, who passed into the ages this week, was next only to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani and Nanaji Deshmukh, notes Sudhir Bisht.
'Mr Modi has the power and pre-eminence in the BJP-RSS to choose how long he wants to serve, and he is definitely going to want to contest in 2029.' 'He will only be 79, as old as Donald Trump now, and fitter,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
Lal Kishenchand Advani, who revived the Bharatiya Janata Party after its 1984 drubbing (when it won only 2 Lok Sabha seats), received a renewed BJP membership certificate from BJP national President J P Nadda during the party's membership drive in New Delhi on Thursday, September 5, 2024.
Many were hoping that with Vajpayee's NDA gone, there would be a return to the Congress normal. Nobody was prepared for the opposite. Sonia Gandhi was sceptical. This became the only issue over which Manmohan Singh took on his party bosses and risked his government. Politically, it was riskier than the 1991 reform, recalls Shekhar Gupta.
Several BJP leaders including Prime Minister Modi called on Lalji at his home in New Delhi to wish the former deputy prime minister.
If Indira Gandhi hadn't targeted the RSS, Narendra Modi wouldn't be sitting pretty with his second majority and looking at a third, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The BJP will enter this election, as it does every election, as if it is fighting to prevent a 2004-style defeat. This is a party that wins big because it always behaves as if its back is to the wall, predicts Mihir S Sharma.
There is no sign of it losing popularity with a significant section of the voting population, which appears to be attracted to the party for identity reasons, observes Aakar Patel.
Monday, November 8, 2021, Lal Kishenchand Advani -- the politician who took the Bharatiya Janata Party from its parliamentary nadir in 1984, when it won just two Lok Sabha seats, to establishing the edifice for its present dominance in Indian politics -- will turn 94.
Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh has criticised Bharatiya Janata Party leader Lal Krishna Advani for raising the contentious Ram temple-Babri mosque row before the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
The BJP at 43 is a work in progress, with total ideological continuity and much substantive change in political method and style, observes Shekhar Gupta.
With the role of the venerable elder thrust on him in UP, Mr Singh has had to attune himself to the politics at the Centre, observes Aditi Phadnis.
In its sway over national politics now, the Modi-Shah BJP is what the Congress was under Indira Gandhi. Why would they indulge coalition partners, their greed and egos now, asks Shekhar Gupta.
'Sanjeev Kumar was my favourite actor. But no one can compare with Amitabh Bachchan.'
'Mr Modi's next challenger/s will need to invent a new politics,' says Shekhar Gupta.
The Swiss authorities have never considered tax evasion a reason for breaking banking secrecy on an account; what they have acknowledged now is that they will cooperate in cases of tax fraud, which has a tighter definition.
'This is not the party I knew... it has changed so much,' he said wistfully.
This probably in the last Parliamentary Party meeting as the Budget Session is likely to conclude tomorrow instead of May 22 as originally scheduled.
What was the need to fictionalise a series on real events that were far more horrific because they were real? asks Vaihayasi Pande Daniel.
'Politics is not a post for retired people to enjoy.'
'Mr Vajapyee felt that you could pray to any god or not pray at all, but the country comes first.'
Amit Shah now enters an unfamiliar and interesting phase of his political career. His success or failure will henceforth be assessed based on his performance as a key minister, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Why the prime minister's legacy will depend on how he governs, not the number of state elections he fights as personality contests, says Shekhar Gupta.
'On a new kidney, her immune system still getting used to it, she took on the Pakistanis at the UN, held meetings with her counterparts from across the world, and presented a picture of incredible poise and dignity,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
'BJP leaders might ponder the all-consuming arrogance that grips the Modi-Shah combine a year ahead of the next general election,' says Sunil Sethi.
'After Vajpayee-Advani, Modi-Shah is the second best in India.'
'There was an overt campaign and there was a covert campaign. The overt campaign may be development, government, and all this nonsense. But the covert campaign, which Mr Amit Shah was doing, was far more important with the help of RSS cadres. This has been an RSS election. From day one I have been saying, this is not Congress versus the BJP, this is Congress versus the RSS,' says Jairam Ramesh, one of the key strategists of the Congress party.
In his much-hyped swansong, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh proved that though he is months away from retirement, he still has quite a bit of fight left in him.
In a sharp attack on Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party campaign centric around him, expelled party veteran Jaswant Singh on Sunday deprecated "veneration" of an individual and said world was full of graveyards of those who are considered indispensable to their nation.
'Modi's campaign has been strikingly devoid of anti-Muslim rhetoric. After the kutta pilla incident, it has been several months since he said something horrible about the Muslims of India. It is the result of democratic constraints. He has to make compromises... He's trying to reinvent himself. He will politically hurt himself if 2002 becomes the definition of Mr Modi again', says political scientist Ashutosh Varshney.
'The difference between black money in India and the black money out of India is, in India, it is tax evaded money and Indian money outside India is not only tax evaded money, but money which has been taken out of India's capital resources needed for India. So it is not only tax evasion, but treason too.'
While even the Opposition doesn't believe that Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy is personally involved in the solar scam, the Congress leaders reputation has been tainted. And while he tells Indulekha Aravind that it is only a conspiracy, it may have a bearing on the coming general elections
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