The Congress used Raj Bhavans to topple legally elected governments. The BJP is letting governors get away with all manner of impropriety, notes Aditi Phadnis.
Governors must be impartial, fair, and above narrow politics to uphold the values and spirit of the Constitution. But in a rapidly changing political culture where the unstated rule is to crush the Opposition, such values have no meaning. At stake are Constitutional values, federalism and governance, asserts Ramesh Menon.
'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.
Elections 2024 is not as open and shut as has been presumed. There is some life left in it, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Riding on its development agenda, the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party was on Tuesday set for a resounding victory in the Delhi assembly elections to retain power for a third term. Here's how leaders reacted to the impending victory.
The reshuffle had politics at its heart, so the biggest complement of new ministers, both Cabinet rank and below, came from UP, which will see assembly elections in a few months.
A day after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's comment that there was no United Progressive Alliance anymore, Kishor, who has earlier been political advisor to various parties, also called for democratically electing the opposition leadership.
The pandemic has changed the way people see the government. It has eroded trust in the administration's ability to tackle a crisis, any crisis, observes Devangshu Datta.
The BJP would want that by March 2022, when UP votes, the economy starts looking up and it heads into the polls with no other issue distracting from its main poll plank of the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
Banerjee, however, didn't clarify whether any other minister of her cabinet would attend the meeting on her behalf or not.
'If Pinarayi Vijayan gets another term, Kerala will be a state where everybody has a house.'
As the new year arrives, the Bharatiya Janata Party's finds itself on the cusp of the most consequential cycle of state polls since the 2019 Lok Sabha elections as the results will tell if the road ahead in its bid for a third straight term at the Centre is getting any bumpier or a strong opposition challenge remains elusive.
'I have interacted with Muslim women in rural Bengal, they are scared of the BJP.'
She faced off against former disciple-turned-defector Suvendu Adhikari in a very different contest. It's not land acquisition, but an ego clash that has acquired, tragically, communal overtones, explains Kanika Datta.
Rarely have we seen such intoxication over power, which ignores the cries of those dying, notes Jyoti Punwani.
Lalpura, who took over as the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) chairperson last week, asserted that his priority would be to dispel 'false narratives' fuelling insecurity among minorities.
Polling for three parliamentary seats and 29 assembly constituencies were held on October 30, an exercise being seen as a barometer of the political mood in the country ahead of assembly elections in politically critical Uttar Pradesh as well as other states.
Why did we go into nationwide lockdown when we were adding 100 cases a day and why are we not going into lockdown but allowing cricket stadiums, political rallies and Kumbh Melas when we are adding 40,000 cases a day? asks Aakar Patel.
For the first time in seven years the prime minister finds himself at his most vulnerable, observes Virendra Kapoor.
Shah attacked Banerjee over the alleged culture of political violence in the state, saying the only industry that was flourishing in Bengal was that of "crude bombs and illegal weapons".
Prasad can still influence the power play in Patna if not change it, reports Satyavrat Mishra.
Governments in most of the world saw their approval ratings dip as they struggled to contain the raging virus, which hit economy hard everywhere, but Indian politics followed a different script, with the outgoing year marking further shrinking of a rudderless Congress while the ruling BJP soared riding on Modi's enduring appeal.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it will hear on December 6 the plea of a Congress leader challenging a recent notification by which the sale of electoral bonds has been extended by 15 more days in the year of general elections to legislative assemblies of states and Union territories (UTs) with a legislature.
'For Modi and Shah, the humiliating setback is bigger than the electoral defeats in New Delhi and in Bihar in 2015.'
In spite of his trying hard he is unable to connect not only with ordinary voters but with most party colleagues as well, observes Virendra Kapoor.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it will consider whether the pleas challenging the validity of the electoral bond scheme for political funding of parties can be referred to a Constitution bench for an "authoritative pronouncement".
It is too early to write Narendra Modi's political obituary, asserts Virendra Kapoor.
The chief minister, speaking at her first major political rally after the Lok Sabha polls, also said the party will launch a statewide protest on July 26, demanding return of black money "siphoned off" by the BJP.
When Mr Rangaswamy began making threatening noises (he could have swapped the BJP's six MLAs with the DMK's six and formed the government with the outside help of the Congress and Independents), the BJP immediately named nominated MLAs.
'The message has gone loud and clear (among the people of Assam) that the BJP is only interested in polarising (the country) and they are basically interested in (capturing votes in) the Hindi heartland and they don't bother much about rest of India.'
More than 750 constituencies spread across four states and one union territory will go to the polls on Tuesday
To help the country emerge as a true welfare State, political parties must put the country's interests first before strategising to win elections and short-term goals, argues Ramesh Menon.
'A pro-Modi wave and anti-incumbency will be incomplete without strong candidates.'
'The BJP will not be able to create dictatorship of the kind it is perhaps dreaming of.' 'We have Bengal as the biggest example.'
Accusing the Centre of setting a new trend of playing "dirty politics" for votes through the budget, an editorial in Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' said the allocation of more funds to poll-bound states is a kind of "bribery".
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha said the petitions raise three separate issues and hence, the need to hear them separately.
Mother and son refuse to go away despite indications blowing in the wind that their leadership is ringing the death knell of the party, observes Ramesh Menon.
'The EC is a sacred institution.' 'In the last few years, more than once, we have found the EC bending over backwards to accommodate the government.'
The Sena's remarks come in the wake of Mamata Banerjee's recent visit to Mumbai, in which she made a cryptic statement that 'there is no UPA 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.'
