On Election 2014: 'So far it looks like a one horse race. The difference between the first and the second challenger is so large that if the first one looks back in the last round, he'll probably not see the second one anywhere.' On the AAP prospects: 'They should be happy if they're able to open their account.' On Rahul Gandhi: 'He has a confused message. His campaign is in the abstract. And his campaign has nothing to offer.' Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley in a free and frank conversation with Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt.
'He is a key fulcrum point in the pan-Indian creation of an effective Opposition to the BJP.'
The Congress' top leadership realises the former cricketer's utility and mass appeal. His oratory skills and ability to whip up mass hysteria in election rallies is acknowledged as an asset
'The Congress can exist without (someone from) the Nehru-Gandhi family being its president.'
Here are some reactions by political leaders to the five-state election verdict.
That AAP managed a sizeable vote share in Gujarat is creditable. The BJP can no longer ignore AAP's growing presence in its strongest bastion, explains Ramesh Menon, long-time observer of Gujarat politics.
Pakistan's Election Commission on Friday disqualified former prime minister Imran Khan for five years in the Toshakhana case for hiding proceeds from the sale of gifts he received from foreign leaders.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra appears to have shed the maximum sweat among top leaders for over the last 45 days in the seven-phase Uttar Pradesh assembly elections campaign.
The TMC also announced it would hold talks with other regional parties in their bid to take on the BJP in the crucial 2024 elections but at the same time denied that it was planning a third front, separate from the Congress-led front.
At its Jaipur meeting, the BJP will focus on this year's assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh while the Congress's Chintan Shivir in Udaipur will discuss how it can resurrect itself.
Those close to Khanna, 46, say he is keeping his options open ahead of a potential presidential run in 2028 or beyond. But others in his orbit are talking about an even more compressed timeline: running in 2024 if President Joe Biden, 80, decided not to, according to Politico, a political newspaper company based in Arlington County in the US.
The Congress won 77 seats or 42% of seats in the 2017 polls. How then can Gujarat be called a BJP bastion, asks Sanjeev Nayyar.
In UP, the BJP focused carefully on the sub-caste divisions within the Dalits and also gave a large number of tickets to SC candidates from sub-castes.
The Congress Working Committee will meet on Sunday to discuss the outcome of the assembly elections in five states where the party received a drubbing, sources said.
The strategist is expected to visit Punjab for 2-3 days in mid-February for an early assessment.
The Congress will hold a chintan shivir immediately after the Budget session of Parliament and the CWC will meet again before that, he told reporters
The Bharatiya Janata Party was on Thursday poised for a landslide victory in Gujarat to retain power for a record seventh straight term but was behind the Congress in Himachal Pradesh which could go with the trend of alternative governments in the hill state.
'A new doctrine now needs to be evolved for a new situation, and the army will do it.' 'You won't see more Kashmiris driven in front of army columns.' 'Nor will the army massacre hundreds, Dyer style,' says Shekhar Gupta.
'How and why did we lose so many seats in places where we were expected to win?'
Ahmed Patel, K C Venugopal and Jairam Ramesh will be part of the Rajya Sabha Committee, which will also include Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad and party's deputy leader Anand Sharma. Azad and Sharma are signatories to the letter that demanded an overhaul of the Congress party and a new 'full-time and visible' party president.
As the new year arrives, what is clear is that the BJP's stars continue to shine the brightest while its rivals' search for a way to dim their glow go on.
Polling for 16 Rajya Sabha seats in four states will be held on Friday amid allegations of attempts at horse-trading by rival parties which have corralled their MLAs in hotels and scenic resorts, prompting the Election Commission to appoint special observers and order videography of the entire exercise.
He stressed that the assembly poll results were 'not bad' though the party was 'a little down' in UP.
The Congress may stand a better chance in the assembly polls if it followed the 'Himachal model', suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP IT cell has held meetings right down to booth levels and these volunteers have been working for the past six months already.
Faceless Ambedkarite groups from across the country are running BSP's election war rooms, writes Archis Mohan.
The JD-U, may be the BJP's partner for now. But it is a party at all only because of Nitish Kumar. The day Nitish Kumar exits, the JD-U will split into hundreds of pieces. Obviously, Prashant Kishor is setting himself up as the vessel that will collect all the pieces and put them together in some sort of political instrument, explains Aditi Phadnis.
It may well be possible to defeat Modi. But nobody seems to know how, points out Vir Sanghvi.
Though the Congress, AAP and other Opposition parties may have high hopes and some positive takeaways to seize on from the results, it is the BJP which has a big headstart and is firmly in the lead.
Modi invoked the epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata to assert that it is in Indian tradition to avoid war be it in Lanka or Kurukshetra and the country stands for world peace.
Delhi has come to accept the Taliban takeover in Kabul as a reality and seems increasingly unsure of its dogmatic view of the Taliban as a mere proxy of the Pakistani military and security establishment, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Dividing people in the name of religion, engineering riots and committing atrocities on Dalits is not Hindutva but to unite one human being with another is, he said in a veiled attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party while replying to a question at a summit organised by news channel Times Now.
'Modi is still immensely popular and, therefore, he can sustain any number of policy failures.' 'Modi himself has worn multiple faces so it would be naive to think that the Modi of 2021 will be the same Modi that will be campaigning for re-election in 2024.'
Washington is signalling to Delhi that it can rely on American support in any great game vis-a-vis China. Delhi shouldn't fall into the trap, argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
I-T officials are also looking into the finances of candidates who contested state elections in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, and Karnataka, reports Shrimi Choudhary.
Prashant Kishor feels that the Congress is a national party that can counter the BJP.
The dinner Jill Biden and her husband US President Joe Biden hosted for Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, June 22, at the White House brought together, Indians and Americans from so many firmaments.
"As part of NDA, we look forward to joining forces with you in Maharashtra to help secure victory in upcoming Lok Sabha elections & beyond. @nitishkumar," Kishor tweeted while tagging JD-U president Nitish Kumar.
Rather than lose direction with the Karnal protest, farmers decided to focus more on UP to defeat the BJP in the forthcoming assembly elections there, reports Nitin Kumar.
'He won't be able to migrate; he must survive in that environment.' 'He will go back after the election to becoming invisible.'
