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.
Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Sunday said the people of his state, including himself, want the withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act but only after mutual understanding with the Centre as national security is their top priority.
Exit polls by various channels predicted a hung house in Meghalaya, a win for the NDPP backed by the BJP in Nagaland, the two states that went to polls on Monday, and seemed to oscillate between predicting a clean sweep for the BJP to a hung house in the state of Tripura, where a new party the Tipra Motha may emerge as a potential king-maker in the polls, held a week back.
'... in the form of possible payments to MLAs and horse-trading for the BJP to win.'
Modi's inability to make peace with a renewed Opposition will only embolden his coalition partners and it is just a matter of time before they begin asking probing questions besides politely disagreeing with his tactics, predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The Congress leader later tweeted an apology.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies are well on the way to power in two north-eastern states, and is almost certain to be part of the ruling dispensation in the third.
Faced with poll debacle in four states, the Congress is expected to hold a 'chintan shivir'.
For now, the DMK can be expected to sound the bugle for Opposition unity at the national level, predicts 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.
If the AIADMK falls short of the 117-mark required to form a government in the 234-member assembly, will it strike a post-poll deal to form Tamil Nadu's first coalition government? N Sathiyamorthy analyses.
'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.'
'It is an existential crisis. We cannot recover lost ground through social media. We need to forge alliances and reshape our ideological contours.'
'The BJP is using all the central agencies at its disposal (to undermine us).' 'We are also taking care that our MLAs are not poached.'
If things go as planned, talks between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Shiv Sena could be resolved on Monday, said sources.
Yadav denied any possibility for a post-poll alliance between the BJP and the Rashtriya Lok Dal's Jayant Choudhary.
Uddhav Thackeray dared PM Modi to fulfil Savarkar's dream of "akhand Bharat"
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.
Veteran Congress leader and former Union minister Sukh Ram has died, his grandson said on Wednesday. He was 94.
BJP IT department head Amit Malviya shared on Twitter what he said were the details of accidents under these ministers and added such 'worthies' are the ones demanding the resignation of the 'most qualified' railway minister the country has had in seven and half decades.
'Why is the entire Cabinet running around in Bangalore?' 'Why are they making arrangements for horse-trading?' 'Is this not the BJP's greed for power?' 'They have won the entire country. Why are they so desperate for Karnataka?'
Addressing the annual Dussehra rally at the iconic Shivaji Park ground in Mumbai, Thackeray lashed out at Shinde, whose rebellion in June this year brought down the Thackeray-led Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government in the state.
As part of the efforts to bring several opposition parties together on a common platform to defeat the BJP in 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Pawar met Kharge on Thursday evening.
The Congress appears to be in two minds on the issue of alliance in Bihar despite top leaders of the party having met both Rashtriya Janata Dal supremo Lalu Prasad and Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan in past weeks.
Giving a new poll slogan of 'Khel Zatlo' in Goa, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said an anti-BJP alliance has already taken shape in the coastal state under the banner of her party TMC and now it is for the Congress to decide whether it wants to join the grouping ahead of elections to take on the saffron outfit.
Mishra's assertion came amid a growing perception that the BSP could again join hands with the saffron party if the 2022 assembly elections throw a hung House.
The ruling Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party are contesting the polls on a 40:20 seat-sharing basis.
A bench of Justices N V Ramana, Ashok Bhushan and Sanjiv Khanna also issued notices to the Centre and Maharashtra government on a petition filed by the Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress combine against the Maharashtra governor's decision to swear in Fadnavis as chief minister.
'The Congress must honour the mandate. The mandate is clearly for the BJP.'
According to DMK, the voters are already consolidated on ideological lines, hence the impact of anti-incumbency, whether against the BJP Centre or the DMK state may not be too much, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Chidambaram, who is the Congress' senior election observer for the Goa Assembly polls, also hit out at the Trinamool Congress for its barbs at the Congress for not forging an alliance with it, saying the party continued to poach Congress leaders, despite making an offer of a tie-up.
The ruling Eknath Shinde camp in Maharashtra told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that the rival side led by Uddhav Thackeray wanted the speaker of the state assembly to "usurp" the powers of the Election Commission when the ultimate test of majority in a democracy -- the floor test -- was ordered by the governor during the 2022 political crisis.
'If he has not achieved 'Congress mukt Bharat' even now, the question of his creating a 'DMK mukt Tamil Nadu' does not arise,' points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
According to the findings of the CSDS-Lokniti survey, the BJP saw a marginal increase in its support among the Muslim voters as compared to the 2017 assembly elections.
Fearing what lies ahead if the Congress led United Progressive Alliance loses power, it is believed that 19 governors appointed by it are considering putting in their papers. Karnataka's Hansraj Bhardwaj has already submitted his papers and is awaiting clearance from the party high command, reports a correspondent.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and his predecessor Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday bitterly traded charges and used caustic terms like "traitors" and "betrayer" as rival Shiv Sena groups headed by them held Dussehra rallies in Mumbai in what was a parallel show of strength by the rivals after the change of government three months ago.
By comparing I.N.D.IA. with banned terror outfits, Modi has exhibited the kind of nervousness never ever associated with him even at the height of the Gujarat riots, and certainly since his prime ministerial days, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
"Several (Congress) meetings happened, but not even a single suggestion was taken," Azad said.
A local Congress leader said that the alliance would not have any bearing in Delhi or in the coming election to the assembly in the north eastern state.
The Supreme Court said on Wednesday the issues related to the Maharashtra political crisis, triggered by the differences in the Shiv Sena, are "tough" constitutional questions to decide as they have "very serious" ramifications for the polity.
