A surprise result in United Kingdom
By Vijay Darda | 18-05-2015 Not many pollsters and pundits were willing to give another five-year term to prime minister David Cameron and his Conservative Party when the United Kingdom went to polls early this month. Indeed, the pre-poll collective wisdom was that the Tories would be thrown out of office, and the opposition […]
Jammu & Kashmir: Handle with care
By Vijay Darda | 09-03-2015 For 68 years we have had a problem called Kashmir. It does not offer itself to any easy solution. In fact, a difficult one is also tough to discern on the horizon. We have fought wars across the border, and our armed forces maintain an eternal vigil within our […]
AAP stuns BJP; is it really good?
By Vijay Darda | 16-02-2015 In the first place, a huge round of applause is in order for the Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal and his team. No amount of praise would be adequate enough for the manner in which they have surmounted the odds against them. They have overcome the combined might […]
An election out of the ordinary
By Vijay Darda | 02-02-2015 Over the next week, the people of Delhi will vote for their state assembly, and then during the mid-week the results would also be known. The electoral battle essentially began as a cakewalk for the Bharatiya Janata Party under the almost unchallenged leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and […]
BJP: Well-deserved win
By Vijay Darda | 20-10-2014 Congress: Self-inflicted loss The assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana had assumed a significance beyond the ambit of merely determining the shape of the political formation that would be ruling these two states. Coming within four months of the biggest success achieved by prime minister Narendra Modi in bringing […]
Shake off lethargy: Repair this neglect
By Vijay Darda | 01-09-2014 We are all aware of the fear that the sight of a lowly police constable strikes in the hearts of anyone who tends to cross the line on the road. The most coordinated response for any checking on the road by these constables, comes from the auto-drivers who make […]
Cong self-goals mount Rahul’s losses
By Vijay Darda | 31-05-2014 After the UPA-II got power in 2009, the common perception in political circles was that at some point of time during the course of the next five years the Congress leadership in government would pass from the hands of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to Rahul Gandhi. This was […]
Modi – big campaign, bigger victory
By Vijay Darda | 30-05-2014 Although the formal notification of the election schedule came much later, the campaign for general elections was kicked off when the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi was anointed as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate in its Goa conclave on September 13, 2013. From then onwards till […]
Kejriwal: Anarchy as strategy
By Vijay Darda | 17-03-2014 Let us face it. After the Delhi assembly elections in December 2013, when the Aam Aadmi Party emerged with 28 seats as a major player it shocked politicians, media players and a lot of other know-alls. But the common people did heave a sigh of relief. There was a […]
Electing 16th Lok Sabha, onus on the people
By Vijay Darda | 10-03-2014 The high democratic ideal of a government, of the people, by the people and for the people places a great responsibility on the people. They have to use their collective sovereign power wisely when electing a government. Through more than six decades of working with the largest democracy in […]