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KOLKATA: There has been an unusual lull in Bangladesh after the elections and after Sheikh Hasina was sworn in as Prime Minister for the second time in succession. The BNP-Jamaat led Opposition, which had boycotted the 5 January, threatened not to recognise the new Government as a legitimate one and to carry on their agitation till fresh elections were held. Hasina’s response was that the elections were perfectly valid and her government would last its full term of five years.

The DMK Patriarch, 90-year old Mr M Karunanidhi, is in agony as the battle for succession within the family reaches a new pitch, before he can devise a credible poll strategy with trusted Dravidian satellites, to arrest a galloping race by Ms. Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK for capturing all the 40 seats of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry in Lok Sabha.

Strange and unpredictable are the ways of politics. Fortunes undergo such wild fluctuations within the wink of an eye as it were that one day you are up in the clouds and the next day you find yourself down in the dumps.

Rarely has an interview drawn so much attention, both for right and wrong reasons, as that of Rahul Gandhi’s to Times Now. Almost the entire media—both print and visual—pounced on him, accusing him of being repetitive, ridiculous, there is much to criticize, superficial, a coup by Times Now, uttered the world “system” six times. He uttered the word in such dire tone, you felt a monster is waiting for the interview to end before it systematically gobbled us all in its “predatory” way. However, empowerment of women, youngsters, RTI, deepening democracy are real issues for Rahul.

New Delhi: Indian Coast Guard is expected to add another 20 vessels in the current year to guard 7500 km long country's coastline.

LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party national President Mulayam Singh Yadav has set the target for 60 Lok Sabha seats out of total of 80 seats from UP Uttar Pradesh before all SP ministers and senior party leaders.

Whatever be the indicative numbers and party positions projected in the newest series of pre-poll surveys, senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders in West Bengal are highly upbeat over the possibility of winning as many as 36 out of 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. This means about 20 per cent more seats for TMC than what the average number forecast for the party by four top survey agencies, including global leader A C Nielsen, in their latest pre-poll sample survey reports.

A full-fledged family-cum-political drama is unfolding in Tamil Nadu with the bitter quarrel in the DMK’s first family moving towards expulsion of the DMK chief Karunanidhi’s elder son Alagiri from the party paving the way for the younger son Stalin’s promotion. The plethora of family problems that plague its patriarch is increasing day by day. The drama reached the climax this week when Alagiri barged in to his father’s bedroom at six in the morning to complain about Stalin saying Stalin would die in three or four months. Karunanidhi went public and even wrote to the prime minister to give security for his younger son.

Now it has become a certainty that Congress is aligning with Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Yadav and in its alliance Lok Janshakti Party of Ram Vilas Paswan and Nationalist Congress Party of Sharad Pawar will also be partners. For all purposes it will be a grand UPA alliance.

The activism of the fledgling Aam Aadmi Party will create a major problem for India’s Election Commission in the forthcoming general election. Already there are signs of discomfort among the cadres of the organised political parties. Congress cadres had a slanging match with AAP supporters during Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Amethi. There had been trouble in Amritsar on the Republic Day over AAP’s comments on Narendra Modi. In the Capital, both Congress and BJP cadres are restless due to continued abuse from AAP leaders. During the Republic Day celebration on the Rajpath, a senior AAP minister reportedly pointed to the VIP enclosure calling it a circus full of monkeys. AAP must realise that such one-sided abuses cannot go on for long.