The BJP is still short of the halfway mark of 123 in the 245-member House, but can now muster a 'working' majority with help of allies, friendly parties, some Independents and nominated members.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi came under scathing attack from the Grand Secular Alliance on Sunday in poll-bound Bihar with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad and Congress President Sonia Gandhi accusing him of "insulting" the state and failing to deliver on any of his promises.
'KCR's plan for the future is three-pronged. He wants to see a non-Congress, non-BJP government at the Centre in 2019 so that he can become the Union minister for home or defence,' says R Rajagopalan.
Springing a surprise, Vijayakanth-led Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam on Wednesday struck an alliance with the four-party People's Welfare Front for the May 16 Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu with the actor-turned-politician being declared as the chief ministerial candidate of the alliance.
Wary of how its alliance with the BJP in the past had cost it votes, the party is determined to steer clear of any harm by association, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
It is possibly the first time that a regional party with not even enough numbers to move a no-trust motion has taken the lead, and others are following it. The hints of a no-trust move first came from the YSR Congress, and the ruling TDP could not have stayed on together when the question is another version of 'Telugu atma gouravam' - an issue that fired its founder N T Rama Rao in the 1980s, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Modi and his corporate sector supporters have identified Maharashtra as a key state where the BJP-Shiv Sena can pick up more seats. In fact, it is estimated that if the Thackeray cousins join hands, the NDA partners can improve their tally from the present 23 seats by adding another eight to 10 Lok Sabha seats, reports Anita Katyal.
Taking on the grand alliance in Lalu Prasad Yadav's home turf of Gopalganj, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asked Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar whether he wanted the old days of 'jungle raj'-- when the region had turned into a 'mini Chambal' -- to return.
Shah attended a function on renaming of Mughalsarai junction after Pt Deendayal Upadhyay.
Unlike the LDF and NDA nominees who are at ground zero and campaigning hard every day, the Congress candidate's campaign is undertaken in absentia, dependent on an army of local and imported from the rest of Kerala Congresswomen and men.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Shatrughan Sinha on Monday said leaders from allies, like Ramvilas Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi, should be considered being named as National Democratic Alliance's chief ministerial candidate for Bihar polls even though his party is yet to decide whether it wants to project anyone for the post.
Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Friday rejected criticism that his party practised politics of minorityism but asserted it cannot close its eyes to the discrimination against Muslims and other sections including Dalits.
Voting will be held in 55 seats on Sunday in the penultimate phase of Bihar election, with stakes high for the Bharatiya Janata Party as it had along with its then ally Janata Dal-United bagged majority of seats in last assembly polls.
'We will certainly perform and take India to newer heights. We will really like to see India become a world power in every sense of the term and build a strong and robust economy that is capable of employment generation on a scale required for a country like India,' BJP ideologue Vinay Sahasrabuddhe tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com
'BJP ministers in Chhattisgarh were arrogant'
'We had never imagined that the prime minister could use such language to win votes.' 'I was under the impression that the prime minister is a very knowledgeable man, but I was amazed to find that he doesn't know that India's Constitution.'
As the BJP does soul searching for its humiliating defeat in Bihar polls, senior party leader Arun Jaitley on Monday admitted "irresponsible statements" made during elections "changed the narrative".
When it comes to the winning strike rate, Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal has emerged victorious on eight of every ten seats it contested while only one of the every three Bharatiya Janata Party candidates managed to win.
The BJP calculates that simultaneous polls to Parliament and TN assembly could help it, intent as it is on making the state break from its Dravidian past, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The truce, even if it is not permanence peace, will come under stress and test during the pending polls to rural local bodies in nine revenue districts and urban polls across the state, including those for 16 municipal corporations, starting with Chennai, the oldest and largest, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Dharmendra Kumar Singh explains the four major factors that contributed to Modi's win in the 2014 elections.
'In old India, there was no hatred, anger or lynching. New India is one where humans are enemies of each other'
For the 2019 polls, the BJP chief deployed over 7,000 leaders to oversee the work of polling committees on the over 400 seats the BJP contested. These committees were asked to focus on 120 seats the party had lost in 2014, but believed it could win in 2019.
'Nitish's claims of development are false. He has only helped corrupt officials.' 'I want to remind Lalu that this is not the 1990s. This is 2015.' 'I am a bahubali for those looting society.'
Modi, 68, was administered the oath of office and secrecy by President Ram Nath Kovind at a glittering ceremony at the forecourt of majestic Rashtraparti Bhavan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday dubbed the controversial deal a "chori" (theft) and indicated that the guilty, howsoever big, would not be spared.
Archis Mohan decodes Bharatiya Janata Party's pre-presidential poll manoeuvres.
The new government will face four big challenges -- subdued growth, the fiscal and current account deficits and sticky inflation, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said.
The 61-year-old feisty leader, who had single-handedly wrecked the red bastion in West Bengal in 2011, was unfazed by the Left-Congress alliance ahead of the assembly polls.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday said the Delhi high court judgement that his government's Anti-Corruption Branch has the jurisdiction to arrest policemen is a "huge embarrassment" for the Centre.
Bharatiya Jaanta Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has challenged UPA leaders to submit a performance report on nine-years of rule and hoped that the 2014 general elections, like in 1977, would reflect the voice of the people of India.
'Narendra Modi is one person who came up fighting many injustices. So, he is a fighter all the time, and that makes all the difference.'
Liquidity pushed benchmark indices 22% higher to become the best performing equity market globally
Mounting attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Communist Party of India-Marxist, Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said while the Left is not going to play any major role in Indian politics after the elections, the saffron party was trying to divide society by stoking anger.
'For the BJP to lose this virtual pocket borough of the saffron brotherhood demonstrates how resolutely the people of Gorakhpur have turned against the party,' says Amulya Ganguli.
The Bihar CM will have make good on his poll promises of a clean administration, providing piped water, toilets, pucca roads and unemployment allowance
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday said that Congress shied away from naming Rahul Gandhi as its prime ministerial candidate as it is foreseeing defeat in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
From lining up allies to having them accept him as the Opposition's prime ministerial candidate in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Congress president Rahul Gandhi's real challenge has just begun, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
He has left no one in any doubt about his ability to take bold, even out-of-the-box, decisions, to gauge the feelings and aspirations of the common people at the grassroots and to ensure that polices and schemes do not remain on paper, but are implemented, says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
Barclays, the global brokerage firm, also stated that the election verdict could lead to a weakness in the stock market.
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