Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Rajnath Singh on Tuesday told a gathering of Muslim intellectuals and community leaders that his party would bow down to seek forgiveness if it had committed any mistake - a reference, unmistakably, to the 2002 Gujarat riots.The previous day, Singh had admitted dalit leader Udit Raj to the BJP fold. Also, the party has been anxious to stitch an electoral alliance with its former-friend-turned-foe Ram Vilas Paswan in Bihar.In a matter of 48 hours, BJP has not only reached out to communities that are not its traditional vote bank - the dalits and Muslims - but wooed people from these communities more vigorously than earlier.In a season of political deal-making, it would seem the party is not only keener to win new friends but is ahead of rival Congress in the game. Its only competition, if at all, has come from regional satraps and the Left parties, which on Tuesday resolved to fight the elections together against both the Congress and BJP.The BJP p

On 'Mission 272', BJP reaches out to dalits, Muslims

Business Standard

DMK patriarch M. Karunanidhi today dropped broad hints thathe may be willing to renew his party's political friendship with NarendraModi-led BJP.Karunanidhi said in an interview to Tamil daily Dinamalar that Modi was "hard working"and "a good friend of his". Significantly, he refused to term the BJP communal,which he did barely three months back at a party rally. The 90-year-old leadersaid he wouldn't want to speculate about the situation post the Lok Sabhaelections when asked whether the DMK may join a BJP-led coalition government.In New Delhi, BJP MP and leader of the opposition in RajyaSabha Arun Jaitley said the party was winning more and more political allies. Hesaid there were "several states in which electoral tie-ups before the electionsor political tie-ups after the elections are both possible and probable".It is the political season to influence people and winfriends, and the BJP is currently winning more friends than its rival theCongress. It is likely that the BJP's other c

NDA hopeful of more pre-poll and post-poll friends

They say the party has been half-hearted in its outreach to Muslims

Muslim leaders dismiss BJP's overtures as meaningless

The people of Telangana and Seemandhra are likely to vote as united Andhra for one last time in 2014

Andhra to vote as one state

Sitaram Yechury

CPI (M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury, who played a key part in the effort to bring regional players on a common platform for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, tells Archis Mohan that Left parties may agree to be a part of a broad secular post-election alternative, even with Mamata Banerjee in it but for that she must come clean on her position on communalism and neo-liberal economic policies. Edited excerpts:What is the objective behind forming the so-called Third Front?Our assessment is that people are totally badgered by economic burdens that are piling on them and are yearning for some relief. Now, the people have come to the realisation that this is not possible either with the policies that the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) follow. They are looking for a policy alternative that can provide them relief. That sort of a relief can only come if there is a combination of parties keen to follow an alternative policy trajectory.Our own objective is to try and bring togethe

No difference between BJP and Congress policies: Sitaram Yechury

No alliance will get majority in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections but NDA would come closest to the majority 272 mark, the ABP News-Nielsen survey has predicted

NDA to fall just 36 short of majority: survey

Fear of losing young voters makes AAP arrest leftward drift

Archis Mohan