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Bahujan Samaj Party boss Mayawati has an interesting theory. She says EVMs were not tampered in the 10 seats the BSP won and in the five the Samajwadi Party emerged victorious in. This, according to her, was deliberately done so that neither the BSP nor the SP would have reason to complain once the BJP took the lion’s share of the seats with EVM-help. So far, nobody’s buying this conspiracy theory. Not even alliance partner Samajwadi Party, which believes Mayawati cut herself a better deal by getting into a gathbandan with the SP.

The BJP leaders are ecstatic at the grand victory of the party in West Bengal. They ought to be, as it was unexpected gift from the Marxists. The BJP did not imagine even in their dreams that the leaders of the CPI( Marxist) would offer them unconditional help to trounce Mamata Banerjee in her bastion.

There are those who say the BJP sold Modi very well. The reality is it was Narendra Modi who sold BJP very, very well. And he sold the BJP to a “New India” made up of an array of people, including first-time voters and sections of Muslims who believed Modi was sincere when he parroted ‘Sabka Saat Sabka Vikas’.

Weekly Round-Up of Major Decisions of the Courts in India as also Legal Policy Developments

Congressmen are the worst enemies of the Congress. A comparison of the leaders of BJP with that of Congress reveal that while the state and central leaders of the BJP were busy reaching out to the voters, the Congress leaders did not make any serious effort to reach the messages of their president Rahul Gandhi’ to the electorates and motivate them to come out and vote for the party.

Now that the dust has settled on the General Elections of 2019, and we have a new government, in fact not new, but the same BJP led NDA Government in power, with Narendra Modi at its helm, let us pause for a bit and think what this mandate means for the future of Indian democracy and its institutions. Plethora of glib opinion pieces analysing the ‘thumping mandate’ given to Modi’s brand of politics is flying around in the last few days, especially India morphing into a ‘New India’. Before we start dissecting ‘New India’ that elects a terror accused, Pragya Singh Thakur, to the Parliament, it is important to understand what was the ‘old’ (sic) India.

The Congress is going through an existential crisis even as the party chief Rahul Gandhi has been authorised to restructure the organisation at all levels last week. Indeed the party needs such ruthless surgery. Gandhi has offered to resign taking 100 per cent responsibility for the defeat in 2019 polls, but the apex body the Congress Working Committee has asked Rahul to stay on.

Rahul Gandhi wanted to resign because his intelligence told him that because he is party chief, he’s primarily responsible for the Congress party’s colossal electoral debacle. But his party satraps have neurons that suggested to them in an insta-second that minus a Gandhi at its head the Congress will split into as many franchises as there are states and Union Territories – the party will fragment.

Seems like the United States doesn’t just make washing machines or pork rinds—it’s in the hostage-taking business, too.

Rahul Gandhi is right about the Congress opting for a non-Gandhi president. But that is not the only criterion. For the party to break the shackles of dynastism, it has to choose someone who will not be a puppet of the party’s first family.