In Gujarat, Amit Shah's tactic of spiriting away Congress leaders and MLAs is jocularly called 'shop-and-buy votes'. Although haemorrhaging the Congress is a vital aspect of his election blueprint, an aide said, "Amitbhai wants to win on our strengths and not by weakening the Congress."
Hindu festivals are now becoming occasions when anti-Muslim hatred is expressed freely through slogans and songs that are full of abuse against Muslims or calls to either kill them or humiliate them, observes Apoorvanand.
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We have in UP today the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party representing the two extremes in a bid to capture power in this huge state that returns 80 members to Parliament, says Seema Mustafa.
In this interview with rediff.com, member-secretary of the Rajinder Sachar Committee on the status of Muslims, Abusaleh Shariff explains the trend, its reasons and ways to reverse it.
'The anti-Muslim discourse creates an atmosphere of fear.'
As CM, he took decisions that confirmed his image as a Hindutva mascot. Early in the first term, he banned illegal slaughterhouses and the state police cracked down on cow slaughter. But the menace of stray cattle created disquiet among farmers, presenting the Adityanath government with a new challenge.
The BJP, on the other hand, learnt from past mistakes to clinch power.
'More than losing Bengal, the worry for their national leadership is the current crisis.' 'If people perceive that the government does not do enough, then there's trouble.'
'This time, even the professedly secular parties have maintained a conscious distance from being identified with Muslims.' 'This could be interpreted as a success of the BJP campaign of what it has been calling 'minority appeasement', says Mohammad Sajjad.
The Assam cabinet had on December 13 approved a proposal to close down all Madrassas and Sanskrit Tols (schools) however, the legislation brought in the assembly during the day did not contain anything related to the Sanskrit tols and the education minister also did not mention anything about it.
'Rajapaksa's victory poses a serious foreign policy challenge for the Modi government,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday said Mumbai and Amritsar will witness "fireworks" if BJP loses Bihar assembly polls, alluding to its strains with allies.
'The BJP is trying to bribe or unleash the income tax authorities (on us).'
'The Bodos and the Assamese were at each other's throats, the Assamese Muslims and the Bengali Muslims were at each other's throats, the Bengali speaking Muslims and Hindus were coming together against the Assamese speaking caste Hindus and the plains tribes and vice versa.'
The Sikhs love a good fight, and that's what the Modi government has given them.
The jobless armies of youthful India are getting angrier and desperate, warns Shekhar Gupta.
If the wave has become a tsunami, why is the BJP's prime ministerial candidate playing safe by polarising voters along communal lines, asks Bharat Bhushan.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday filed her nomination for Nandigram assembly seat, where she will take on her former protege and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Suvendu Adhikari and exuded confidence of winning it saying she has never returned empty-handed from the land of anti-farm land acquisition movement.
They said it was then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi who on February 1, 1986 got the permission for starting prayers at the disputed site and got the locks opened.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's historic Lok Sabha election success in Uttar Pradesh has influenced its two main rivals in the state, the Samajwadi Party and Congress, to field fewer Muslim candidates for the 11 assembly seats that go to the by-polls on Saturday.
'I don't think there is a wave in favour of the Samajwadi Party, or against the BJP.' 'This election is largely about which party is able to build a larger social and political coalition.'
The Delhi Police on Thursday filed a first information report against the 'pro-Khalistan' creators of a 'toolkit', which was shared by teen climate activist Greta Thunberg and others on Twitter in connection with the farmers' protest, alleging it aimed to wage a 'social, cultural and economic war against the Government of India'.
It claimed that the Act is violative of Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution and thus, is liable to be struck down.
'Potent nationalism doesn't just distract from the economic task at hand; it actively undermines it.'
'The BJP will be the ruling party.'
'The spirit of religious faith in Kashmir is inclusive.' 'There an inclusiveness of Islam in Kashmir.' 'An ordinary Kashmiri can be a political fundamentalist, but he can never be a religious fundamentalist.'
The foundations of the army's own peculiar secularism are potentially being destabilised
'Everyone knows Pakistan is doing it.' 'But what are we doing? We should not incite more violence.'
Days after the Uttar Pradesh government denied the Vishwa Hindu Parishad permission for the yatra, the row has gained a religious-political colour.
As the House took up the debate on Motion of Thanks on the President's Address, the Bharatiya Janata Party launched a frontal attack on opposition parties specially the Congress for their stance against the CAA, saying they were trying to divide the nation.
The Rajasthan unit of the Aam Aadmi Party has written to Election Commission seeking action against Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje for her controversial remarks at an election rally.
Indian authorities failed to "prevent many incidents of religious violence and contributed to tensions through polarising speeches", Amnesty International said.
Rahul Gandhi's remark about communal conflicts in Uttar Pradesh being "deliberately engineered" has triggered a war of words between Congress and BJP, with both accusing each other of indulging in "communal politics".
'Those leading the current political dispensation, whether at the central or the state level, must recognise the enormous risks that their divisive policies are creating for the national security and wellbeing of the country,' cautions former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
What was shocking was the execution of the killings -- calculated, gory and intended to send a chill down the spine.
If the government of India is indeed interested in an amicable solution, instead of proposing half-hearted steps such as putting the laws on hold for 18 months, it can withdraw the legislations and think of other possible solutions, given the basic constitutional position that the subject of agriculture is in the State list in the Constitution, it said.
'Whom do I want to marry and what decisions I make for marrying the person I love are totally personal decisions, in which neither the State nor the courts have any right to interfere.'
Presiding over the meeting of the Congress Working Committee in the absence of party chief Sonia Gandhi, the party vice president charged that, "hiding behind the cloak of national security, civil society is being intimidated for asking questions."
Political observers have said that the TMC, now desperate to shed the 'anti-Hindu' tag and embrace 'soft Hindutva', is carefully planning its moves, with help from poll strategist Prashant Kishor and team, as is evident from its decisions to organise Brahmin Sammelan, provide sops to Sanatan Brahmins, and financial aid to Durga puja committees.
According to community leaders, Rajnath Singh has filled party posts with Thakurs and pushed Brahmins to the margins. Archis Mohan reports
