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When Bhupendra Patel’s name was announced at a BJP Legislature Party meeting on September 12, 2021, as the new Gujarat Chief Minister in Gandhinagar, he was taken aback. Patel, 59, was sitting in the fourth row among dozens of MLAs like him, in a simple shirt and trouser, no way dressed for the occasion — […]
In an unprecedented development for Gujarat, the seemingly invincible BJP has been brought to its knees with a vociferous opposition forcing the State Government to cancel the controversial head clerks exam after it has been established that the paper had leaked. And this victory — whether the BJP or the Congress likes it or […]
“Yes, we are andolanjeevi,” declared firebrand human rights activist Medha Patkar in a rebuff to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s andolanjeevi taunt at those leading people’s movements in the country. She asserted, “Today’s centralised policies are pushing the marginalised communities further to the margins, squeezing all options for the poor but to take to the streets.” […]
An archaic 1860 provision in the Indian Penal Code that exempts marital rape from the definition of rape as an offence has been challenged in 2021. The Gujarat High Court has agreed to examine a public interest litigation which challenges the Constitutional validity of exception 2 to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code which exempts […]
Even as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi attempts to call bluff of BJP’s Hindutva claim at a massive rally in Jaipur, it wasn’t the saffron publicity machine but AIMIM chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi who delivered a rebuttal. Owaisi, whose party is often being taunted as the B-team of the BJP, tweeted, “Rahul and INC […]
The ruling BJP in Gujarat may have swept under the carpet its government’s ham-fisted Covid-19 management by replacing the chief minister and his entire team, but the ghosts of fudged death numbers have come to haunt it yet again. And it was a rap from the Supreme Court on its knuckles on November 22 about […]
The much-touted first anti-love jihad case in Gujarat has fallen flat. Filed on June 17 by a zealous Vadodara Police within two days of the legislation coming into force, it has been challenged by none other than the complainant herself asserting that a family dispute had been made a forced religious conversion case. Within a […]
Even as it is still a year to go for the 2022 assembly polls in Gujarat — assuming that the elections are not advanced to hold it along with Uttar Pradesh in March-April as is being speculated — the BJP and the Congress, along with an apparently serious contender AAP, have already launched the preparations. […]
He is down to earth, is accessible, he has risen from the ranks, he is pragmatic, he can identify issues, he has patience to listen. These are only a few first reactions that came from a moribund Congress apparatus in Gujarat to the new State in-charge, Raghu Sharma, appointed by the party high command for […]
October 7, 2001, the day Narendra Modi took oath as the chief minister of Gujarat heading a beleaguered BJP, he famously declared: “I am here to play a one-day match.” He had the onerous task of turning around a party that was tottering within six years of forming its first full-fledged government in 1995, thus […]
The central BJP leadership may have sought to set at rest murmurs among the Patidars that the community was being ignored by their “alma mater” party by foisting a new Patel chief minister in Gujarat, but the young fighters for quota are far from satisfied. The Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS), launched by the reservation […]
That the BJP captured power in Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation or won 136 out of 184 local body seats largely in the cities and peri-urban localities is nothing unexpected. The media in Gujarat would have almost kept their stories ready 24 hours in advance if not more on Tuesday’s election results. Ever since 1995 when the […]
There is a striking similarity between Narendra Modi and Mahendra Dhoni. Dhoni walks in late, doesn’t speak, looks around and hits the six to snatch victory from defeat. Modi specialises in suspense, walks in the last — and has the last laugh. Reams and reams of paper, thousands of bytes, lakhs of social media messages […]
Hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually inaugurated the Rs 200 crore Sardardham Complex built by the Patidars on Saturday, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani was sent packing, sparking off speculations that the BJP will have to return to a Patel to head the government. The top contenders being discussed as Rupani’s replacements are all […]
“Vijay Rupani’s remote control is with Delhi (Narendra Modi)”. When former Gujarat Congress president Arjun Modhwadia says this, he quite sums up the high-command culture that prevails in the BJP. This has been a favourite charge of the BJP on the Congress party for years. When Vijay Rupani was scalped on Saturday, he joined […]
The first wave of Covid-19 just seemed to be ebbing in July 2020 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi sprang a surprise, for which he is known for, by pitching Navsari MP CR Paatil as the Gujarat BJP President. It surprised everyone for he is not a Gujarati though settled here for long and so it […]
Having vanquished the mighty Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in the rough and tumble of West Bengal politics, the maverick Mamata Banerjee wants to try a hand at bearding the lion in his den — Invincible Gujarat. More significant than whether Didi succeeds in Gujarat is that she is sending a strong message to the […]
The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a 2013 judgment of the Gujarat High Court striking down the 97th Constitutional amendment relating to the cooperatives sector that allowed the Parliament sweeping control over the states in a sector that ideally falls under the state jurisdiction. In a strong reprimand to the then Central government (the UPA), […]
Circa 2017. Hardik Patel, an upper caste Patidar, Alpesh Thakor, an OBC and Jignesh Mevani, a Dalit, are the three young Turks who fuelled the Congress party’s rejuvenated campaign during the December 2017 Gujarat Assembly elections, which left the ruling BJP with an apologetic seven seats more than a sure, spectacular defeat. It won 99 […]
