Saisuresh Sivaswamy/Rediff.com decodes Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech after the Pran Prathistha ceremony at Ram Temple in Ayodha.
BJP strategists know it may not repeat its 2014 performance in its traditionally strong bases in the north and the west. This is where the success in the north east and east is so important.
Arun Jaitley, who is recovering from a kidney ailment, attended the proceedings after a long gap.
If the idea was to garner AIADMK votes with or without the three faction leaders after the party broke ties with the NDA, it may not work after all, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Chandrababu is wiser and a very good administrator.' 'Jagan is the opposite. He is not very wise, not a good administrator.'
For the first time in his political career, he failed to carry his party to even a working majority -- and again, for the first time in his career, he finds himself in a situation where he cannot rule by dictatorial fiat, points out Prem Panicker.
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.
Bhandari, a three-term Congress legislator who was also a minister in the state in the past, joined the BJP in the presence of its senior leaders, including Union Minister Piyush Goyal and the party's national general secretary Dushyant Kumar Gautam.
'The Opposition parties will continue to woo Chandrababu Naidu even though he has said he will support the BJP.'
Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras on Saturday said he will contest the next Lok Sabha polls from Hajipur, rebuffing his nephew Chirag Paswan who has staked claim on late father Ram Vilas Paswan's constituency.
'Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Bengal can be the game changers of 2024.'
The performance of Janata Dal-United has down compared its performance in the 2015 elections and the ruling party could not win even half of the number of seats it contested in this election.
'This decision to go with the BJP is Kumaraswamy's individual decision and not a party decision.'
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday said that the defeat of Janata Dal-United in Maharajganj bypoll has no bearing on the National Democratic Alliance.
Indications are that the DMK combine will win more seats than the AIADMK and BJP, but is facing a tough fight in about half a dozen from the rest, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy of the electoral contest in Tamil Nadu.
A day after his landslide victory in the Bihar assembly polls, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was on Thursday elected as the leader of the National Democratic Alliance legislature party in the 15th Bihar assembly.
In the past five years, UP's Opposition remained passive and defensive against the BJP, a trend that does not augur well for the impending battle.
High voter turnout was recorded in most of the seven assembly constituencies in six states where by-elections were held on Tuesday.
'Rahul Gandhi is the face of the INDIA alliance. If he contests against a BJP candidate and defeats her/him, it will send a strong message.'
As the exit polls were sharply split on who would get to rule Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav on Saturday said their grand Mahagatbadhan alliance would win the Bihar Assembly polls with 190 seats.
Why did Modi single out the Congress and its leaders for the most pugnacious verbal assault while sparing other regional adversaries? If he is trying to get some parties to break the Opposition ranks, it means that the BJP's present bravado is for effect. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times, begins a new column for Rediff.com.
The Trinamool Congress registered a decisive victory in West Bengal on Sunday, contrary to results of most exit polls which predicted a tight race between the BJP and the TMC with an edge to the Mamata Banerjee-led party.
The work we have done in the south and the northeast over the last 10 years under Prime Minister Modi's leadership, we have started getting results of the same, he said.
Erica and Woods have been in an ongoing legal battle for several months. In October 2022, she filed a lawsuit against a trust set up for his residence. Erica said that she had a verbal agreement to live at the estate for five years but she was kicked and locked out of the home.
Call it the art of staying rooted yet bending with prevailing political winds. With Telangana going to the polls in December, and assembly and Lok Sabha elections in Andhra and Odisha scheduled next year, what factors have influenced parties' recent moves?
Is the unusually and unbearably scorching Sun and the general laxity, bordering on laziness, among voters, responsible, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said during the reply to the debate on no-confidence motion on Thursday that when the government said that it would make India the third largest economy in the next five years, a responsible opposition would have asked questions how it would do so, but the fact is he had to teach this to them.
BJP-led NDA has said it will strongly demand that the Telangana Bill be brought in the Winter Session of Parliament and press for debates on issues like internal security, violence against women and subversion of constitutional bodies like JPC on 2G scam.
Aiming to end the 25-year rule of Lalu-Nitish combine in Bihar, the National Democratic Alliance will formally launch on Thursday its campaign for the crucial assembly polls scheduled later this year with BJP president Amit Shah set to flag off 160 'parivartan raths' from Patna.
'Every Indian who is concerned about the unity, integrity and the map of India should be worried about this growing divide.'
National Democratic Alliance allies on Monday put up a united front amid vocal demands being made by some parties on their share of seats in Bihar polls but the crucial issue of seat-sharing was not discussed at their maiden joint meeting chaired by Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah.
Constituencies that are going to the polls in the first phase, slated for April 19, have just 19 days for campaigning. Contrast that with those going to polls in the 7th phase, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'What should surprise BJP supporters is Modi's call for 'stability' at the manifesto launch, a theme that he and his team members had not touched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019.' 'The last time the party called for 'stability at the Centre' was in 1998 and 1999,' recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
In future if the party wins, people would say 'INDIA has won,' but if the party loses, then people would say 'INDIA has lost'
On one hand, South Indian states have been complaining about denial of a proportionate portion of the sharable funds from the Centre, based on population. On the other hand, they stand to lose Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha seats that again are based on population, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
What the INDIA alliance needs is neither a counter to Modi's tall personality and undiminished charisma nor a counter-narrative to his Hindutva agenda, now centred on the Ayodhya temple consecration on January 22, argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
Rajasthan Congress leaders Jyoti Mirdha and Sawai Singh Chaudhary switched to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Jaipur on Monday ahead of assembly elections due later this year.
Singh, accompanied by Army Chief Gen Manoj Pande, also carried out a comprehensive review of India's military preparedness along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Arunachal Pradesh and lauded the troops for guarding the border with "unwavering commitment and unparalleled courage."
Addressing a press conference, Paswan said he was happy that the BJP had emerged "much bigger and stronger" in Bihar, and ruled out any possibility of a truck with the opposition Grand Alliance, comprising RJD, Congress and three Left parties, citing "ideological differences".
