Thank god for cricket
There must be a world beyond Yogi Adityanath I keep telling myself. For the last week, television has been in a trance with a politician who we once consciously...
The Rise of the Yogi: the Mask is Off
The first time I met Yogi Adityanath was in his bastion of Gorakhpur ahead of the 1999 general elections. It was only the youthful Yogi’s second parliament election and...
Can opposition take on Modi in 2019?
In the aftermath of the 2014 general election debacle, I asked a senior Congressman how his party would now battle the Narendra Modi juggernaut. “Not to worry, we have...
Goa Gone with ‘Money-pur’
So, the BJP is set to form the government in Manipur and Goa, adding two more states to its kitty. In both states the pattern is disturbingly similar: a...
Modi 24 X 7, 365 days
In the final leg of the 2014 general elections, Narendra Modi dramatically announced in a rally, “Yeh dil maange more”. It was a quintessential Modi soundbite: the BJP’s internal...
Lotus could bloom in UP
Predicting the outcome of an Uttar Pradesh election can be injurious to health. In 1993, extensively covering a UP election for the first time, when my editor asked me...
Oh, to be 21 again
A young woman spoke out against the politics of hate, on friendship with Pakistan, on seeking peace not war. Within minutes she was attacked by the soldiers of nationalism....
Today Narendra, tomorrow Devendra?
One of the first press conferences I covered as a rookie reporter was of Bal Thackeray and Pramod Mahajan in the late 1980s announcing their decision to contest elections...
UP: ten takeaways
It’s the half way mark in the crucial election battle in UP. It is impossible to accurately predict a 20 crore state’s voting preferences after a few visits, but...
Elections On My Plate | Exclusive Report From Lucknow
To understand vox populi on the Uttar Pradesh assembly election, India Today’s Rajdeep Sardesai takes you through the ‘Land of Awadh’. We meet voters to understand will the alliance...