Tag: BJP

In his death, Atal Bihari Vajpayee may have provided the BJP just the shot in the arm it needed ahead of the 2019 elections. While he was alive and ailing, very few in the party bothered about him. In fact, it is entirely possible that had he not been ailing and confined to his home, […]

It has been a long-standing Indian tradition not to speak ill of the dead, no matter how unsavoury some of the deeds of the person in his lifetime were. So, let us discount all that has been said about Atal Bihari Vajpayee since he breathed his last at AIIMS, New Delhi at 5.05 pm on […]

The Narendra Modi government at the Centre has been frequently pilloried and ridiculed for being a ‘jumla sarkar’ – and justifiably so. But surprisingly, the fact that the Naveen Patnaik dispensation in Odisha has been no less a ‘jumla’ government appears to have escaped the attention of commentators in our state. Forget the charges made […]

As the spine chilling details of the Kathua gang rape case make it to the mainstream media, comparisons are inevitably being drawn with the horrific Nibhaya gang rape case of Delhi in 2012. But there are at least three reasons why the latest case is more abominable and a greater shame on humanity than the […]

On the surface, the BJP and Congress are at loggerheads at the national level. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has repeatedly called for a ‘Congress mukt Bharat’. On its part, the Congress is working to forge unity among Opposition parties for a ‘Modi mukt’ and ‘BJP mukt’ India in 2019 without actually positing it as such. […]

Gujarat had hinted at it. Recent by-elections in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh had corroborated it. And now, the outcome of the latest round of by-elections in UP and Bihar has confirmed it. The BJP is losing its support and Prime Minister Narendra Modi his brand equity. The loss of all three Lok Sabha by-elections – […]

If Bijepur deflated the balloon, North East has pumped in fresh air. Just three days after the BJP was brought down to earth by the stunning defeat in the most high profile by-election in the state in recent memory, the commendable performance in four north eastern states, especially the stupendous victory in the Left bastion […]

The result of the much hyped Bijepur went along expected lines. The BJD proved once again, if any proof was needed at all, that it has no match when it comes to winning elections. It also proved that the minor setback in last year’s Zilla Parishad polls, which emboldened the BJP to start dreaming about […]

It has been two days since the BJD formally lodged a complaint with the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) accusing leading Odia TV channel OTV of peddling ‘paid news’ designed to favour the BJP and work against the ruling party in the run up to the Bijepur by-election. Over the last two days, I have been […]

That the holy cow is central to the BJP’s brand of politics is public knowledge. Everyone also knows that BJP backed think tanks have discovered many hitherto unknown virtues of cow dung and cow urine. But one never knew that among the myriad virtues of cow dung is its usefulness as a political weapon. Until […]

Political prediction is always fraught with risks. Even seasoned commentators have ended up with egg on their faces after crystal gazing into the future. But ‘Scandeep’ will still stick its neck out and predict that Bijoy Mohapatra, the enfant terrible of Odisha politics, is set to return to the party he co-founded before the next […]

The triple talaq bill passed by the Lok Sabha has evoked extreme reactions on either side of the political, social and gender divide. On the one side are the BJP and its supporters, women’s organizations speaking for Muslim women like Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan and Muslim women in general, who have hailed it as a […]

There are two ways to look at the Gujarat election results. You can either say it was a tremendous achievement on the part of the BJP to have beaten the anti-incumbency of five consecutive terms in office to retain power. You can also see it as the first sign of the shrinking support for the […]

The mask has fallen off. The Narendra Modi government at the Centre has proved that for all its talk of ‘cooperative federalism’, partisan party considerations outweigh its commitment to federalism, the bedrock of Centre-state relations in India. Instead of acting as the ‘neutral umpire’, it has acted in a manner that is designed to protect […]

Shehzad Poonawalla could not have timed it worse. He chose to take on Rahul Gandhi – no less – at a time when the Congress heir apparent was in the middle of a fierce, no-holds-barred fight to wrest Gujarat from the BJP after 22 years. Coming as it did just 10 days before Modi’s home […]