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 respective Dussehra rallies of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and and Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray were once again about whose version of Hindutva is genuine and who is the true inheritor of party patriarch Bala Thackeray's legacy.
'Across the political spectrum, especially from the side of the NDA itself, there is complete disillusionment (with the way the BJP is treating its allies).' 'This leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.'
Keen to win more allies, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been identified with the Hindutva tag, on Friday decided to strive for an "imaginative reprojection" of its "commitment to secularism" and reassured minority community that it does not support discrimination on basis of religion.
For Yogi Adityanath the successful management of the fair is a crucial part of building 'Brand UP' and making the state a $1 trillion economy.
'Chandrababu is wiser and a very good administrator.' 'Jagan is the opposite. He is not very wise, not a good administrator.'
Party chief Bal Thackeray said NCP leader Sharad Pawar lacks ideology.
There are states that could swing either way and change the results of the 2024 general election.
Clad in a yellow kurta with a saffron gamcha around his neck, atop an open saffron coloured vehicle, he was greeted by loud chants of "Modi! Modi! Modi Zindabad! 400 Paar Is Baar" all along the roadshow's route.
Malik said Congress leaders requested that the meeting be postponed to Wednesday.
The Shiv Sena on Wednesday asked the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership to clear its stand on the issue of its prime ministerial candidate and demanded that a meeting of the National Democratic Alliance be convened soon. The BJP ally gave a clean chit to Chief Minister Narendra Modi, widely expected to be the BJP's PM candidate, over the Gujarat riots.
'We have got our permutations and combinations in place.' 'We are also trying to garner support from some NDA allies.' 'Every section of society has suffered during the four years of Modi rule.'
"We got a lot of confidence from our success in Bihar, and we will continue that momentum," Owaisi told reporters after their meeting in Lucknow.
The Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar is in trouble ahead of the upcoming state assembly polls as two of its ally the Lok Janshakti Party and the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party on Sunday played pressure game to bargain for more seats.
There is a view that heavyweight portfolios like home, finance, defence and external affairs besides education and culture, two ministries with strong ideological hues, will be kept by the BJP, while its allies can get anywhere between five to eight cabinet berths.
However, The Lok Sabha did not take up notices for no-confidence motion
From opposing the NPR and NRC to demanding special status for Bihar to staying out of the Union Cabinet on principle to showing the BJP who was boss in Bihar, Nitish Kumar has wasted no opportunity at cocking a snook at the BJP leadership. But how long can he continue, asks Gopal Krishna.
Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, Narendra Singh Tomar, Prakash Javadekar, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Dharmendra Pradhan and Smriti Irani are also likely to join the second Modi government after being its members in its first avatar.
'More than 9.5% new voters have been added to the electoral voters' list compared to the 2024 Lok Sabha election.' 'This led to an increase in about 5% to 6% in total votes polled for this assembly election.' 'That has tilted hugely in our favour because we worked hard for registration of these voters and concentrated on bringing out these new voters out during this assembly election.'
Kushwaha made the exasperated remark in reply to queries from journalists about Singh's relentless, and often personal, attacks on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Chandra Shekhar's uncharitable remarks about Ramcharitmanas which triggered a controversy.
It was not that differences did not crop up over other issues between the two erstwhile allies, but Parkash Singh Badal always ensured that these were amicably resolved and the ties remained intact.
The party leaders are confident the NDA will achieve the majority mark of 272, reports Archis Mohan.
Ahead of Cabinet formation, Narendra Modi, prime minister designate on Monday held discussions with his close aide Amit Shah and senior party leader Arun Jaitley even as newly-elected Bharatiya Janata Party members of Parliament met senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh functionaries at the Sangh office.
The BJP's strategy seem to be to wean away allies from the Congress, in Dravidian Tamil Nadu, and maybe later in UP, Bihar and elsewhere, though in slow doses, but without wooing them into a new alliance. The idea seems to be only to weaken the INDIA bloc from within -- and leaving it at that, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Sources said the opposition parties would look to avoid the prickly leadership question as of now and emphasise on building a common ground.
The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Monday announced walking out of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and said it would lead a separate front for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Narendra Modi, who steered Bharatiya Janata Party and the National Democratic Alliance to a landslide victory in the Lok Sabha elections, was on Tuesday appointed prime minister, ushering in a new era of a non-Congress government with an absolute majority on its own in 30 years.
By targeting the BJP's Ram temple agenda, Upendra Kushwaha has hinted that his days within the NDA are all but over.
The Congress has not released a poll manifesto but a declaration of appeasement.
The Shiv Sena has particularly been upset with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has repeatedly attacked him.
With A P J Abdul Kalam deciding not to join the Presidential race, the Bharatiya Janata Party core group met in New Delhi on Monday night to discuss its strategy including support to P A Sangma and reluctance of allies like the Janata Dal-United to go for a contest against United Progressive Alliance nominee Pranab Mukherjee.
Bihar assembly Speaker Awadh Bihari Chaudhary on Sunday called on Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad Yadav, at a time when the state was witnessing a big political churn.
In a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday said when the elections are over, people will only remember him as the PM who indulged in 'divisive and communal speeches filled with lies' to avoid an inevitable defeat.
In focus are the assembly polls in 2026. From a BJP perspective, their attack on the ruling DMK, using the 'Hindutva' card, and Annamalai's targeting of both Dravidian majors on corruption has not worked, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Harping on putting up a united front, the Congress alleged that democracy is being "mercilessly murdered" and MPs who raise people's issues are suspended from the House.
'The Congress is trying to reinvent itself -- the caste census demand, OBC emphasis, the anti-corporate thrust, especially on Adani etc -- all this is not standard Congress strategy.'
In the coming assembly election, negotiations over seat-sharing will be as important as actual outreach to voters.
The Janata Dal-United's decision to break its alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party not only changed the political equation in Bihar but also created a buzz in the political circle from Patna to Delhi that whether Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman and JD-U MP Harivansh will continue on his post or going to resign.
Other NDA allies, including the Lok Janshakti Party and the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party, will get due representation in the seat sharing formula, Shah said.
While people voted in a fifth round that will set the tone as this election rounds into the straight, and while Modi on the stump chews the cud of personal grievances and hackneyed promises that have long since passed their use-by date, there is a rogue wave rising -- what damage it will do, we will know 16 days from today, observes Prem Panicker.
