'Once elected, you have to act like people's representative for the full five years or else people show you your place.'
Setalvad said working on a deeply polarising issue among the public is not an easy one and added that the impact of social media on polarization is also overwhelming.
'Bharat Jodo Yatra' is a 'booster dose' for the Congress and a 'decisive and transformational moment' for the politics of the country, senior party leader Jairam Ramesh said in Guwahati on Friday.
The Congress victory in Karnataka, its first big state since 2018, puts the party back in the game for general elections as it re-establishes primacy in the opposition space that is currently vastly fragmented despite efforts to cobble up a united front against the BJP.
He was billed as the next big thing in Dalit politics in Uttar Pradesh and a challenge for the Bahujan Samaj Party but Mayawati's party is least impressed by the exploits of Chandrasekhar Azad 'Ravan' let alone consider him a threat.
Family members of those convicted alleged that an attempt has been made by the BJP to polarise the UP Assembly elections and questioned the timing of the judgment.
Why weren't the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Kerala, Maharashtra and Telangana -- all of which have borders with Karnataka -- not invited to Saturday's swearing-in ceremony, asks Shyam G Menon.
Three mentees pay homage to Sherna Gandhy, the legendary journalist and editor who passed into the ages on April 28 after a long battle with cancer.
Banerjee had slammed the BJP for allegedly trying to import AIMIM in Bengal to sharpen the communal polarisation and divide the Hindu-Muslim votes among themselves.
The ruling Congress is seeking to retain power in Chhattisgarh by banking on the welfare schemes of the Bhupesh Baghel government, while the Bharatiya Janata Party is hoping to corner it on the issues of alleged corruption, religious conversions and unfulfilled poll promises.
'The ruling provides a Constitutional template, it draws boundaries, and there is this expectation that henceforth political parties will not make crude appeals to religion for electoral gains.'
Given that the BJP made all these moves and that these moves were presumably approved by Modi if not directed by him, who should accept the responsibility for the party's rout? asks Aakar Patel.
'Karpoori Thakur must be remembered by people today who are tired of witnessing fractious politics where corruption, bigotry, hatred and violence seems to have become distressingly recurrent,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
The film falsely claims Hindu women converted, got radicalised and were deployed in terror missions in India and the world, according to the ruling CPI-M and opposition Congress in Kerala.
Before the launch of the 'Bharat jodo yatra, former Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will on Wednesday take part in a prayer meeting at former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's memorial in Sriperumbudur.
The controversial issue of Muslim girls wearing 'hijab' in educational institutions, which had hit national headlines last year with a government pre-university college in Udupi banning it inside classrooms, does not appear to be a serious campaign issue for the May 10 elections to the Karnataka assembly.
Being driven to abandon Indian middle-class values, asks Ajit Balakrishnan.
'They have no incentive to be part of either the NDA or INDIA at this stage, but they may hedge their bets towards the winning coalition in the post-poll setting.'
'You need a leader whom India can identify with and I cannot think of any other leader except Sachin Pilot in the Congress party.'
The Congress needs to reorganise itself at the grassroots, infuse younger blood, and have more boots on the ground. Just offering freebies is not the answer anymore. Leadership matters, asserts Ramesh Menon.
BJP veterans whom K Annamalai has reportedly sidelined are upset over his 'immature' way of handling allies, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
Thackeray's tweet came amid reports that he is unwell.
'Conrad Sangma is an interesting mix of charisma, ability and has emerged as a capable leader.' 'Neiphiu Rio is very unassuming, quiet, subtle and stands out among all Naga leaders today.'
'Ram Sene or Bajrang Dal were supposed to be fringe elements, but with the BJP in power, they have become mainstream elements.' 'The government is either keeping quiet or indirectly supporting them.'
Three persons were shot dead and several others were injured as violence and arson marked the conclusion of nomination filing for the three-tier West Bengal panchayat polls slated next month.
Shah, who was accompanied by BJP national vice-president Mukul Roy, national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargya, was greeted with slogans of 'Amit Shah zindabad', 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' by party workers at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata.
'Cinema or the sentiment of a people, disgusted by contemporary politics and wanting to feel whole by collectively recalling a moment of great difficulty that was also a cause for togetherness?', asks Shyam G Menon.
'Am I wrong in presuming that UP is being seen as a new laboratory of communal politics like one has seen in Gujarat,' asks Ashutosh.
Ironically, the BJP, which seeks to unseat the TMC from power, has taken a leaf out of Mamata Banerjee's strategy of soliciting tinsel town's support towards causes and fielding actors in elections.
Vellore is one of the two seats that the DMK alliance won by the narrowest of margins in 2019. For the DMK's vote-score to be so low in a constituency with a substantial Muslim population has not missed the BJP strategists' eyes, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Demanding Salman Khurshid's removal from the Union cabinet, BJP leader Arun Jaitley said that he was shocked at the law minister's blatant defiance of a constitutional body. Sharat Pradhan reports
Ahead of starting the much-hyped 'Bharat Jodo Yatra', Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday attended a prayer meeting at the Rajiv Gandhi Memorial in Sriperumbudur on Wednesday.
'After meeting the prime minister and Amit Shah, Yogi has come out with his position secure till the assembly election.'
'For the UDF, it will depend on how far Rahul Gandhi will succeed with the goodwill he has.' 'That will make a difference.'
The broad patterns tell us that to sweep UP, the BJP has to retain its voteshares of the past three elections. But to merely win it, the party can do so while losing some voteshare, and perhaps up to as much as 10 per cent, observes Aakar Patel.
'Today in Uttar Pradesh all big parties like Samajwadi Party, BJP or even Bahujan Samaj Party are out to woo smaller parties as they know the Hindu votes are getting divided.'
'Communalism and communal riots happened in India only during and due to colonialism. Pre-colonial India didn't have this problem of communal conflicts and religious strife.'
The Kashmir Files director Vivek Agnihotri on Tuesday said he will quit filmmaking if intellectuals, including Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid, are able to prove that events depicted in his film are false.
Union Home Minister and top Bharatiya Janata Party leader Amit Shah on Thursday set a target of 200 out of the total 294 seats in the 2021 West Bengal assembly elections and to come to power in the state, party sources said.
This divisiveness is upsetting social cohesion and can throw the bright young people thronging to Bengaluru with billion dollar ideas in their creative minds off balance, warns Shekhar Gupta.
