'It can be said without hesitation that Rahul, Priyanka and Sonia Gandhi enjoy perfect relations of mother-daughter-son all together in the family.' 'But their worldview is different and their style of functioning is different and their favourites in the party are different people.'
Will the AIADMK acknowledge the role of CAA and the anti-CAA protests, both inside the state and outside, as among the causes for the current electoral reversal, as many in the party now want? It is unlikely to be so, but then the pressure will increase on the leadership to reassess the BJP alliance at one level and the 'blind support' for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's controversial policies on the other, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
With the Aam Admi Party expected to announce its decision on government formation only on Monday, there was no clarity whether the Union Cabinet meeting on Thursday will take a call on imposition of President's rule in Delhi.
Without naming the BJP, Joshi added, "We are not begging for it. We are expressing our emotions. The country wants 'Ram rajya'."
There is a vital difference between Bofors and Rafale, explains Shekhar Gupta.
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.
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh puts it succinctly: "Arun Jaitley was every non-BJP person's favourite BJP-ite."
'Modi remains the most popular politician in India; the BJP's organisational and fundraising prowess is considerable; and the Opposition, while newly collaborative, has no leader or clear economic messaging as of yet.'
'Though coalitions, which ruled India for 25 years after 1989, are regarded as a terrible thing politically, they delivered the best economic results,' points out T C A Srinivasa-Raghavan.
With an eye on the crucial Uttar Pradesh assembly election, BJP's national executive will begin its two-day meet in Allahabad on Sunday which will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah among others.
From disbursing Rs 25.11 crore to political parties in 2014-2015, the Tata group is learnt to have contributed Rs about Rs 600 crore towards the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
Many BJP leaders are of the view that most key members of the previous Cabinet could be retained.
A crucial meeting of the Telangana Rastra Samithi to decide the political future of Telangana will be held on Tuesday at Hyderabad. Sources say that the popular mood in the party is that they should not merge with the Congress. Vicky Nanjappa reports.
M I Khan in Patna Nearly twelve years after he left the National Democratic Alliance and resigned from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government after the Gujarat riots in 2002, Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan will share the dais with Gujarat Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi at his 'hunkar' rally in Bihar's Muzaffarpur town on Monday. Paswan, who joined the NDA last week to contest the Lok Sabha polls and took a U-turn on Modi, will appear in public with the BJP's top brass including Modi at the rally. Paswan's son Chirag will also be present at the function. Upendra Kushwaha is another new face that will be at the event. Kushwaha is the chief of the Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) that joined hands with the BJP last week. Both Paswan and Kushwaha are known as their own caste. Paswan is said to enjoy overwhelming support of his caste -- locally known as Dusadh, the only Dalit caste in Bihar after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar categorised 21 other Dalit castes as 'Mahadalit' -- poorest of the poor. Kushwaha has been trying hard for last few years to emerge as a leader of his caste -- Koeri, an agrarian backward caste spread across the state. A senior BJP leader said that presence of Paswan and Kushwaha will send a strong political massage among respective castes in Bihar. "It will strengthen the BJP's social support base in Bihar," he said. In Bihar, the BJP is widely seen as an upper caste party. The much-hyped rally is seen as a bid to mobilise support and strengthen the support base in the state. The state in the Hindi heartland that sends 40 Lok Sabha members to Parliament is politically very important. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the party had won 12 seats, while the Janata Dal-United won 20 seats, when they had contested as a combined force. It is expected that Modi will target Kumar, who has openly opposed him by repeatedly saying that the prime ministerial candidate should be of nsecular credentials.
In the mid-1980s, India and the US struggled to arrive at sufficient confidence for Washington to even sell a supercomputer to India for monsoon prospecting. Now, the most sensitive military technologies, data, and intelligence resources are being shared. This would not have happened without that one, big deal that changed the fundamentals of India-US relations, notes Shekhar Gupta.
MPs will first attend a 'Farm Progress Show' in Iowa, then visit the Monsanto headquarters in St Louis, Missouri.
Losing power after having come so close, Yediyurappa was determined to regain the reins of power from H D Kumaraswamy.
What goes behind the scenes for an American President's visit?
'When he has been retired against his will, Advani appears to have found the merits of tolerance.' 'It took his one-time pupil to teach the old man his own lesson,' says Aakar Patel.
'Mr Modi may have the aura of an irresistible conquistador now, but he is human. He isn't an 'avatar,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
By ending the Shiv Sena's political untouchability, the Congress is creating a level playing ground for itself in the political battle of Hindu identity, explains Sheela Bhatt.
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Rahul Gandhi's experiment of choosing Congress candidates for Lok Sabha polls through the 'primary' system appears to have suffered initial hiccups with two constituencies being dropped from the list of 16.
This time round, even 'petrol coupons' were reportedly distributed for those attending campaign rallies, especially those addressed by top leaders, cutting across party lines. If this owed to the rising cost of petrol and diesel -- which is a poll issue this time -- there were the customary coupons for 'quarter' (liquor bottle size) and non-vegetarian biryani. Some media reports claimed that some of these 'crowds' attended more than one political rally on the same day in the last week, and at times for rival political parties in adjoining constituencies or districts, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Mainly, his strategy to win UP veered around spreading the message of Hindu identity, projecting Modi's leadership, encashing anti-incumbency against the Samajwadi Party and UPA governments in Lucknow and Delhi respectively.' Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com provides exclusive insights into Amit Shah's strategy that gave Narendra Modi an awesome victory in Uttar Pradesh.
Strident Hindutva has not been the Shivraj Singh Chouhan's hallmark in his long tenure as chief minister. What has changed?
With a decelerating economy that weakens India's hands on geopolitical issues, it will be interesting to know which way this trip will go.
'In being dismissive of Naveen, his colleagues showed incredible naivety.' 'On the few occasions that he put his foot down, the overconfident party leaders, who believed they were using him and not the other way around, failed to read the signs of what was to come.'
Congress leaders told Rediff.com that if Sonia or Rahul Gandhi do not take up the leader of opposition's post in Lok Sabha, it would lead to factionalism and internal dissension, something that the party can ill-afford at this juncture. "Kamal Nath is undoubtedly a senior MP but his candidature is bound to be opposed by the MPs from southern states as they have won more seats," remarked a senior Congress functionary, adding that senior ministers like Veerappa Moily and Mallikarjun Kharge can be expected to push their candidature for this post. Anita Katyal reports.
The apex court said the parties in the matter should be ready to start the hearing on the appeals which are before it.
In this exclusive conversation with Rediff.com contributor Rajeev Sharma, exiled opposition leader Ahmed Naseem explains why the world should care about democracy in Maldives.
Board of Control for Cricket in India secretary Anurag Thakur says former president Narayanswami Srinivasan will continue as ICC chairman till September after which the Board will chalk out a way forward at its Annual General Meeting.
Police claimed that money recovered from alleged middleman Sukesh Chandrashekar was sent by Dinakaran.
'Over the years he has been getting a feeling of being sidelined by his uncle.'
'Overlying his idealism was a hatred of war and of all things military. He gave no deep thought to politico-military matters and this prevented him from making sound security decisions.'
If the Congress can simply go from 110 million to 130 million votes, it will yield a very different kind of NDA.
On her 101st birth anniversary, November 19, four letters that reveal a different side to inarguably India's toughest prime minister.
'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.
'George was a politician with a difference. He had the ability to stand alone, take a position, however extreme, and sustain that position,' remembers Arun Jaitley.
Around 700 migrant workers, women and children have lost their lives in this reverse migration. But what is happening today with the migrant labour is only a continuation of the policies pursued by the Modi regime during the last six years. It is not for nothing that India was ranked the most dangerous country in the world for women in 2018 by the Thompson Reuters Foundation poll, points out Rashme Sehgal.
Sensing defeat, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have launched a new game plan for a fractured mandate in Uttar Pradesh so that they can have bargaining power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday.
