Will the perceived Narendra Modi wave help the National Democratic Alliance re-enact the 1998 spectacular success in Tamil Nadu when it bagged 30 seats in alliance with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, is the million dollar question on the minds of the Bharatiya Janata Party workers as the party heads into the April 24 Lok Sabha polls armed with a rainbow combine excluding the two Dravidian majors.
Chandrababu Naidu is very upbeat after pulling off a victory in the Seema-Andhra region. All set to take over as the first chief minister of the bifurcated Andhra Pradesh, he told reporters that his victory showed that people had voted for development and against corruption.
This was a difficult election to win, but the Modi card, the caste divide and the division in the Opposition vote bank helped overcome many challenges.
The Congress and the Left parties have not only extended support to the Samajwadi Party candidate but are also campaigning for him, in accordance with the spirit of the new opposition togetherness ahead of next year's general election.
This is also the first time that Naidu has been arrested on corruption charges in his political career spanning over 40 years.
The bickering between allies All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Bharatiya Janata Party in Tamil Nadu over late Dravidian stalwart C N Annadurai peaked on Monday with the regional party snapping ties with the saffron organisation, saying it cannot tolerate any affront to the late chief minister and its other leaders.
Shankersinh Vaghela claimed Patel's victory in the Rajya Sabha polls came through a 'well thought-out conspiracy'.
The National Democratic Alliance's presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu swept the floor of a Shiva temple in her locality in Rairangpur, in this nondescript, tribal-dominated town in Odisha's Mayurbhanj district at the crack of dawn on Wednesday, ahead of her journey to Delhi.
All the winners in the assembly bypolls were from the respective ruling parties.
Will Vijay will go the most successful MGR/Jayalalithaa way, or that of Vijayakanth, Seeman or Kamalahaasan, or will he end up as another Rajinikanth who cries wolf at the last minute and quits the scene even before it all had really begun, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Janata Dal-United on Tuesday became the third major ally after the Shiv Sena and the Akali Dal to snap ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party after 2019.
Several legislators in states on Monday said they have cross-voted in favour of National Democratic Alliance nominee Droupadi Murmu by not following their respective party lines in the presidential election.
There may be those who could want to go slow, citing the large pendency of follow-up action and court cases that they would have to process and/or proceed with, before raiding more politicians, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
With the assembly polls only two years away, in 2026, any demoralising defeat in 2024, would challenge not only the party's continued relevance but also EPS's leadership, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Kumar will be administered the oath of office by Governor Phagu Chauhan at a simple ceremony inside the Raj Bhavan at 2 pm.
Prashant Kishor expressed the view that the recent 'chintan shivir' could not achieve "anything meaningful".
The winning momentum is important for the BJP as the crucial state of Karnataka is next headed for assembly polls, expected in May, followed by Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram later this year.
The two-day deliberations, which will be held at Grand Hyatt in the suburbs, will begin in the evening of August 31 and from 10am on September 1. The meeting will be followed by a press conference, Raut informed.
In a stunning blow to the BJP on Wednesday, the party lost bypolls to all the three Lok Sabha seats it contested, including its bastion Gorakhpur, and Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh, besides Araria in Bihar.
'...they were shocked to learn that just 352 Indian soldiers had made 3 brigadiers, 2 colonels, 170 officers, 290 JCOs and 8,000 troops surrender to the Indian Army.'
'This solid verdict would further strengthen his resolve to drive forward the economic agenda to ensure that the fruits of the economic momentum continue to reach the poor, so visible during the last five years.'
The BJP on Sunday authorised its president J P Nadda and Union minister Rajnath Singh to hold consultations with different political parties, including those in the opposition, on the president's election, in what is being seen as an outreach by the ruling party to arrive at a consensus on the choice for the top constitutional post.
A new realignment should be expected in equations between the non-BJP, non-Congress parties and the government at the Centre. Aditi Phadnis reports.
This management team will coordinate with all state units of the BJP and its allies for the presidential election and is also expected to guide its elected voting representatives on the voting process.
The JD-U leader was seen sitting with Tej Pratap and Tejashwi Yadav, the sons of RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav.
The BJP won both the Rajya Sabha seats from Assam.
For now, the DMK can be expected to sound the bugle for Opposition unity at the national level, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Stakes are high for the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the counting of votes on Thursday for three state assembly polls, as the results will signal if it has deepened its roots in Tripura, a Left bastion captured by the party in 2018, and made further inroads in Meghalaya and Nagaland, or if the opposition has managed to dent its influence.
'Now they're talking about changing the Constitution; they feel they have no reason now to hide their intentions.'
Exit polls often go wrong in India because pollsters don't sample voters in the poorest parts of the country or the core support bases of different political parties, explains Professor Atanu Biswas of the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.
Droupadi Murmu scripted history on Thursday by becoming India's first tribal President in the one-sided contest, defeating Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha.
Dubbing the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance as a "sinking ship", the Congress claimed on Tuesday that the UPA would retain power at the Centre as it enjoys the support of people for its "impressive performance and charismatic leadership".
The National Democratic Alliance presidential candidate Droupadi Murmu on Thursday consolidated her lead after the second round of counting by getting nearly 72 per cent votes of the total votes of all MPs and MLAs of 10 states counted so far.
Tamil Nadu electricity minister was arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), official sources said, making him the first minister in the M K Stalin-led government to face such an action from a central agency.
One fallout of Rahul Gandhi's disqualification will be reflected in the Opposition's role in Parliament and related institutions.
Fresh from BJP's massive electoral victory in the Lok Sabha polls, Narendra Modi today had a dig at the Opposition saying parties outside the ruling coalition may have to stitch an alliance to formally attain the status of an Opposition.
The 243-member assembly is witnessing a fierce competition for the chief minister's post, and as per current trends, the NDA is comfortably ahead of the Opposition camp.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in the assembly polls on Thursday has put the party on a stronger wicket for the election for the post of President expected later this year.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday rejected claims by Bharatiya Janata Party MP and his former deputy chief minister Sushil Modi that the Janata Dal-United had split with the National Democratic Alliance as the chief minister was not made the Vice President.
The seat-share progression should worry the BJP. From the previous assembly polls of 2017, through the assembly segments in its favour in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and now in 2022, the BJP's seat-share has come down from a high 312 to 275 to 255. N Sathiya Moorthy reads the political tea leaves after the UP and Punjab election verdicts.
