In a government that is often criticised for its inaccessibility and opaqueness, Swaraj won hearts around the world for her ability to reach out and make a difference. And her outreach efforts began well before the advent of social media.

Some politicians endear themselves to their core base and no one else, alienating those across the aisle. Swaraj was not that type of politician. Despite being a BJP lifer, she had a bipartisan appeal and an air of dignified approachability.

Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan made unsavoury remarks about BJP lawmaker Rama Devi in Lok Sabha. This is not the first time Khan has stuck his foot in his mouth – and Devi is not the first woman politician to face disgusting sexism in the workplace.

Sheila Dikshit, the former Delhi CM who died on Saturday, attempted to change the city’s uncaring image by pulling Delhi’s toes across the line of modernism. She did everything in her power to reform its public image – from the Metro to the Commonwealth Games – with varying results.

With the matter of their resignations being heard in the Supreme Court today, Karnataka’s rebel MLAs have had the most dramatic quitting saga since Rahul Gandhi’s stepped down as Congress party president. Rahul finally set a political trend, but unfortunately it wasn’t the one he’d hoped for.

Whether you agree with first-time Trinamool MP Mahua Moitra’s maiden speech in Lok Sabha or not, it can’t be denied that she possesses a rare courage and conviction. At a time when the Opposition is often labelled toothless, it is leaders like Moitra that give us hope.

The ill-fated ventures that were Rahul Gandhi’s election campaign and the final season of Game of Thrones have many parallels. But perhaps the greatest similarity between the two is the feeling of utter dissatisfaction at the way things panned out in the end and the hype around The Prince that Was Promised.

Disappointment for the anti-Modi crowd was as inevitable as someone saying “Winter is coming,” on a Game of Thrones episode. Still, that doesn’t make the bitter pill any easier to swallow. These are the five stages of grief, as experienced by non-BJP supporters.

Democracy’s true essence isn’t the elections, but the days that follow after it ends, when we shed our voting hats and return to the routine of being citizens. Everyday life does not depend on political beliefs. So despite what we may feel about our differences, we work and live alongside people without bothering to identify someone as “sickular”, “bhakt”, or “commies”.

If exit polls are to be believed, the BJP is likely to improve its tally in Mamata Banerjee’s West Bengal. Some suggest a neck-and-neck fight between Trinamool and the BJP. But for those hoping for a change in the state, the two parties have more in common than they would like to admit.

Even though West Bengal sends 42 MPs to Parliament — six less than Maharashtra and 38 less than Uttar Pradesh — all eyeballs seem to be on the current battle between Didi and Modi. Didi’s final walk in the heart of Kolkata on Thursday had the air of a Bengal tigress prowling her territory.

During BJP President Amit Shah’s roadshow, BJP and Trinamool workers clashed on the streets of Kolkata. A statue of 19th century reformer Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was vandalised. And though the violence was unprecedented, for as long as I can remember elections in the state have been a bloody affair.

#TheArréWeeklyPodcast: This Lok Sabha election has thrown up some exciting contests, but few are as thrilling as the battle between AAP's education expert Atishi and BJP's former World Cup winner Gautam Gambhir. A day before Delhi goes to vote, join our panellists as they try and figure out which of these two candidates deserves the vote. Also let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

It is remarkable that for elections in the national capital of the country, political parties have pretty much taken the electorate for granted. A majority of the candidates contesting from Delhi, especially the ones who have been parachuted in at the last minute, look like complete misfits.

For middle-class and rich Mumbaikars, election might be a five-yearly farce that fails to shake their educated antipathy. But for our domestic helps, postmen, milkmen, poll season brings along with it hope. When the politicians come to their basti once every five years, they are tempted to believe that their life might become a little better.

The MMRDA Grounds in Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla Complex where Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a rally on Friday evening was partially empty. I wish I could say the same about the multiplexes that screened Avengers: Endgame.

#TheArréWeeklyPodcast: Just before Mumbai goes to the polls in the #LokSabha election, here's what we are discussing: In these divisive times, is it okay to be apolitical? Host @Kahini Iyer chats with @Amal Singh who believes that "It's crucial to have a voice, especially when voices are being silenced all over the world." And on the other side is @Damian D'Souza who argues that "Being apolitical doesn't mean you're not politically aware." Do you agree? Comment below to tell us whose side you're on!

East Delhi is set to hold a nail-biting fight between AAP educationist Atishi and cricketer Gautam Gambhir from the BJP. We finally have a contest to look forward to.

In the desi version of Game of Thrones, aka the general election, there are as many claimants to the throne as there are house symbols. Ranging from the hand to the hammer, lotus to the lantern, sickle to the cycle, and the cock to the clock. It’s poll season, and the drama of democracy dwarfs anything HBO’s entertainment juggernaut could offer.

The ambivalence toward exercising your franchise from younger voters baffles me. It’s almost as if they are afraid of the kind of commitment it requires to go to a polling booth and choose a candidate or NOTA, as if they do not want to be accountable for the vote they cast.

Each election cycle brings in a government that chips away at whatever democratic ideals we have left. Yet, we vote every five years and display faith in our Constitution. To that end, the time to be a fence-sitter is over. To sit on a fence is to be politically flexible to whatever it is that suits you best, regardless of how it affects others.

The Bengali voter is in an unenviable position for the first time. What used to be a simple exercise in saying yay or nay, now presents a moral, ethical, and ideological challenge for Bengalis. Gone are the days when the voter in Bengal could simply vote for the Left Front or against it.

The Electronic Voting Machine is back in the spotlight after claims of EVMs malfunctioning on the first day of the Lok Sabha elections in Andhra Pradesh. But it's about time that the EVM deserves recognition as Indian politics’ MVP.

As India prepares for the world’s largest democratic election, it’s impressive that such a large minority of the urban public has managed to stay apolitical. Recently, Alia Bhat and Ranveer Singh announced that they had no political views, validating the views of many more regular citizens who claim to be “apolitical”.

Political manifestos in India have as long a history of contradiction as they have of ineffectiveness when it comes to being decisive in the final vote. In 1996, the Congress party’s secularism pitch was clearly spelt out. Today, the party does not even mention the word Muslim in its manifesto. Similarly, the BJP manifesto makes no mention of the job crisis.

I often hear Hema Malini scream nahiiiiiiin, and I know she has just read a tweet mocking her earnest efforts to woo her constituency to re-elect her in the upcoming elections. Only a selfless and supremely humble soul like Hema Ji can do so much for Mathura and yet claim she Kent remember any of it.

On my way to Narendra Modi’s rally in Kolkata, I heard shouts of “Jai Shri Ram” and “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”, and from their accents it was clear that these BJP supporters were locals. BJP’s brand of politics has more than a handful takers in Bengal and the PM’s popularity has certainly peaked.

Rather than ask whether the Congress will work on its promises from its newly released manifesto, we should ask whether the manifesto will work for the Congress. The most highlighted issues like sedition, freedom of speech, and net neutrality, are problems that concern a very small part of the electorate.

With PM Narendra Modi and My Name is RaGa readying for release, who will win the battle of the biopics this election season? If the reception to The Accidental Prime Minister is any indication, regardless of how the Lok Sabha elections turn out, the box office will belong to the BJP.

Economist Jean Dreze was detained yesterday for poll code violation and withheld from talking about the right to food. Meanwhile, biopics on political leaders continue to be publicised. The moral code of conduct is as vague as it is feeble, and what India desperately needs is a stricter set of rules in the near future.

Gautam Gambhir was a great decision maker on the field, and might be an even better one off the field. Let’s hope he builds his political innings with the level-headedness that marked his playing career, and doesn’t end up running himself out.

The political battlefield is a playground and Rahul Baba needs to think beyond winks and hugs, cheeky tweets and puns to counter Modi & Co. You got to play fast, you got to play smart. And you got to stop scoring own goals. No more chaiwala and chowkidar quips, please.

The last time PM Modi made an announcement, the entire country found itself in an ATM queue. Thankfully, the #MissionShakti address did not have dire complications. We know India is now in an elite space club, but what exactly are A-SATs and Low Earth Orbits?

For once, our politicians have got the idea of a yuva neta correct. At 28, Tejasvi Surya is the BJP’s youngest candidate. With emo tweets and an adorable Instagram picture of his dog, he’s definitely winning social-media brownie points.

There is the India that outrages over the Surf Excel ad and wonders how Yogi Adityanath maintains his mane. This is the India unperturbed by the brutalisation of women in “other India” that lives Pollachi, in Kathua, in Unnao. The general public, the news media, folks on social media, don’t hear of the other India.

National Highway 1A, the only road connecting Kashmir to rest of the country, often gets blocked and puts commuters to extreme hardships. At a number of locations, it’s little better than a patchwork of mud and rocks. It summarises the apathy of the rest of India toward the northern state.

Rahul Gandhi has decided that the Congress will go it alone on all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. But there was much more to gain in an alliance for the party, than there was to lose for AAP. The Congress might think it has bigger fish to fry, like UP, but the importance of a few hands-on-deck in Delhi cannot be undervalued.

From an assertive Uddhav Thackeray to the contrarian Mamata Banerjee, our prolific leaders are doling out relationship lessons — you just need to know where to look. If Priyanka Gandhi teaches you to stand by your bae, Mamata is the perfect example of how to be in a supremely happy relationship with yourself.

The reality of a war between India and Pakistan is not a pretty one. But social media provides a perfectly safe platform for a generation of smartphone-wielding jingoists to thump their chests, call for the destruction of the enemy, and signal their patriotism, while being at a safe distance from the actual frontline.

The Grand Old Party finding love with its 37-year-old rival in Andhra Pradesh – Telugu Desam Party (TDP) – had definitely made BJP, the earlier partner of TDP, feel jealous. But as the election results showed, could the TDP’s dominance be on the decline?

As the Lok Sabha elections approach and the industrial sector in West Bengal’s Asansol continues to dissolve, BJP MP Babul Supriyo’s chances of a second term look bleak. The problems facing Supriyo are symptomatic of the ones that have been haunting his party on a national level for some time now.

Over the past few decades the BJP and the AIADMK have been both friends and foes. For now, the national party and the regional one seem to be seeing eye-to-eye, but their latest partnership is a rickety bridge over some very troubled water.

Back in the ’90s, those who joined the Kashmir militancy were mostly uneducated, marginalised men. But the rise of educated militants like Adil Ahmad Dar has ushered in a new phase in the militancy, and the stark contrast from the ’90s cannot be overlooked.

In recent days, reports have emerged of Kashmiri students and citizens being targeted around the country, further alienating a people. The Kashmir problem cannot be resolved by disqualifying its people as participants in the process.

If Imran Khan is serious about redefining Pakistan, now is the time to show his mettle as a leader. Claiming he has more important things to do than worry about martyred soldiers in Kashmir is not a great illustration of good international relations, but committing to bring the terrorists to task would be a good next step.

Only Subramanian Swamy would be able to say that “BJP has failed in Kashmir” in the wake of the Pulwama attack and get away with it. How has the pugnacious Swamy managed to co-exist with his party colleagues for so many years?

China has been constantly blocking India’s move to designate Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar a global terrorist. Without Beijing’s backing, would Pakistan be in a position to shield Azhar?

An attack like Pulwama will naturally elicit concern and passion, as it should. But even our anger, our hostility has to be carried out by men and women who have families to come back to. Let us always remember that.

From Pathankot to Pulwama, Masood Azhar’s Jaish-e-Mohammed has continued the assault on security forces in Jammu & Kashmir. With China’s soft stand against Pakistan-sponsored terror, his clout only grows.

Adil Ahmad Dar, a construction worker before he became a Jaish-e-Mohammed militant, left home on a cycle a year ago, never to be seen again. Stories like Dar’s are plentiful in J&K, where simmering tensions between locals and security forces boil over into lethal confrontations with disheartening regularity.

This week’s fracas at Aligarh Muslim University – slandered as a “university of terrorists” – ended with 14 students being charged with sedition. AMU and Banaras Hindu University are two inextricably linked strands of Indian self-definition. What do our double standards for the two institutions say about us?

Until the attack on the CRPF convoy in Pulwama, all parties were waging hard-fought election campaigns. The tragedy has changed their tune, as it ought to.

Two weeks after the Pulwama attack, India carried out an air strike on terror camps across the LoC. If Imran Khan is to be believed Pakistan will strike back. But can we afford a war with our neighbours?

The Priyanka Sena is less like the angry, saffron-clad followers we’re used to, and more like the teddy bear your baby cousin offers his sweetheart on Valentine’s Day. Is this the fabled “Priyanka Effect” that we’ve all been hearing so much about?

Is there trouble in paradise for the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance? Uddhav Thackeray has made vociferous demands to set a date for the construction of Ram Temple. Meanwhile, Devendra Fadnavis has ordered reviews of each Lok Sabha constituency, because BJP insiders feel the Sena is poorly prepared for the upcoming polls.

Mamata Banerjee had come to power on the plank of “poriborton” (change). But at least in the department of political gangsterism, Trinamool Congress follows the way the Left carved. Ask any person from Bengal who follows politics and they’ll tell you, “CPI-M goons have shifted to Trinamool Congress.”

Yesterday, Mamata Banerjee ended her dharna against the BJP, amid claims that she had weakened the political tool of protesting. We may question Banerjee’s moral high ground, considering her own intolerance toward dissent, but to take her down only because she chose to protest is misguided.

Very rarely in the annals of history has an active government resorted to protests. It does seem rather redundant that the very keepers of administration would abandon it in favour of large-scale disruption of everyday life.

Rahul Gandhi’s last-ditch attempt to win voters before the general elections with cash deposits is a cheap political stunt. His promise of minimum wages is testament to his belief that India is a nation of freeloaders, rather than a people who seek fair employment at a fair price.

On Mahatma Gandhi’s death anniversary, the Hindu Mahasabha shot at an effigy of the Father of the Nation and set it on fire. Where are these defenders of Indian values, society, and culture, when the name of one of the architects of the nation is being besmirched?

It’s 2019 and we’re going to vote for our politicians the same way we voted for our favourite Indian Idol contestants. Screw manifestoes, poll promises, and all that other boring shit. All we really want to see is who cracks the most popular joke on Twitter and creates a more viral hashtag.

Social media has been abuzz with PM Modi’s reference to PUBG at Pariksha Pe Charcha 2.0. And in the run-up to the 2019 general elections, both Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi recognise that a politician’s grasp over the public imagination is no trivial matter. But can anyone in the Grand Old Party match the PM’s oratory skills?

How did we get to this troubling nadir, where Indian citizens in Mizoram are looking to China for help, and not the government? The answer lies in what the Citizenship Bill could entail – and Mizoram’s treatment of its ethnic minority group, the Chakmas.

Former actress Isha Koppikar is BJP’s newest star politician. The party has been publicly courting the entertainment class and has even turned to cinema as electoral bait. The Congress, on the other hand, is either too slow or too callous to ignore the possibilities that this low-hanging fruit offers.

Before I got on social media, I used to think that there were a few things most, if not all, Indians could agree on. Chief among those was the idea that everybody knew that the man who killed Mahatma Gandhi was a Bad Guy. Once you come online though, you realise that Nathuram Godse is a polarising figure who still commands a vocal following.

George Fernandes is the leader because of whom India had to wait to get a taste of Coca-Cola. He is also the leader who had a penchant for explosions – he was said to have a picture of the Hiroshima bombing in his office. Looking back at the colourful yet controversial life of the former defence minister.

Congress rivals have already begun taking sexist potshots at Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s “chocolatey face”. But for those of us without political inclinations, her appearance allows us to talk about how power fashion just got an interesting twist in the Indian political arena.

Priyanka Gandhi has finally made her long-awaited debut in politics proper. She might energise the Congress cadre, but can she change the fortunes of the party ahead of the 2019 general elections, asks a column published in The Print.

There is a difference between “EVMs can be rigged” and “EVMs are rigged”. If getting rid of voting technology is what our politicians really want, it essentially means going back in time to the ballot paper. That will be a huge setback to our democracy.

Priyanka Gandhi ticks many checkboxes. For the liberal, she is an educated, eloquent woman; to the masses, she is a smooth-talking ballerina gliding across the stage of a Bhojpuri play. Her appointment as party general secretary in UP is a sign of the Congress making its final stab at relevance.

Mamata Banerjee is all prepped for the big fight at the Centre. She has set herself up as the face of the anti-BJP team. And if her dharna in Kolkata is any proof, she has arrived on the national scene.

Six years after the advent of Aam Aadmi Party headed by former IRS officer Arvind Kejriwal, another dissenting bureaucrat is looking to disrupt the very nature of politics in Jammu & Kashmir. But will Shah Faesal’s stint in politics end up being “an addition and not an alternative”? Will he be the voice of Kashmir’s aam aadmi?

It took three years to charge sheet Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid, who’d organised a rally condemning the death of Afzal Guru – but only six months to charge sheet Afzal Guru. Get ready India, for a new form of terrorism, where militants enter our country strapped with polarising opinions and unleash them in a crowded market.

Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming is a lesson in empathy, endurance, and elegance. It’s an exposition of her doctrine, “When they go low, we go high.” While I’d pretty much recommend the book to anyone I know, the people who’ll most benefit from it are our politicians – Rahul Gandhi, Smriti Irani, and Arvind Kejriwal.

Maybe there is more to the sedition charges against Kanhaiya Kumar and the JNU student-activists. The delay in the filing of the chargesheet smacks of convenient timing. With the General Elections just a few months away, expect hyper-nationalistic rhetoric to be dialled up, and accusations of “anti-Indian” practices to fly thick and fast.

The Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party tie-up might seem like a marriage of convenience. But this uneasy union could challenge the BJP in the upcoming General Elections. The “bua-bhatija” camaraderie was on display at the press conference when they formally announced their alliance.

It cannot be said whether shunted CBI chief Alok Verma is truly guilty of the charges set against him. It is tempting to assume he’s innocent, considering how many good men the government has stomped all over these past few years.

The Citizenship Amendment Bill aims to protect Hindu migrants and by extension keep out Muslims. But the BJP government’s one-size-fits all vision might not work for the Northeast, where locals do not want “outsiders”, irrespective of what religion they belong to.

It is a strange and disturbing thought that the very institutions founded to implement and sustain democracy, have recently had to struggle with undemocratic values. The sacking of Alok Verma a day after his reinstatement is further proof that the country’s institutions are risking losing their autonomy and integrity - in some cases, irreparably.

Shashi Tharoor’s seemingly woke sensibilities endear him to India’s millennials like no other politician has in the past. But last week, after two women entered the Sabarimala Temple, he claimed it an unnecessary act of provocation. Perhaps we put Tharoor on the pedestal too soon.

The Citizenship Bill proposes to allow “persecuted minorities” from neighbouring countries to seek citizenship in the country. It’s ironic to see the BJP project itself as a champion for minorities in other countries, when it can be argued that they’ve failed at creating a safe haven for those already residing within our borders.

Among the tainted careers of Indian politicians, Manmohan Singh held his reputation as a squeaky-clean legislator. A new biopic wants us to spoon out sympathy for a man supposedly stuck in a sorry predicament. But let’s please accept that Dr Singh chose not to exercise any power – and that is his true legacy.

The Cabinet has announced 10 per cent reservation for economically backward upper-castes: a transparently populist move from a BJP government gearing up for election year. But it has also turned a demographic that has been traditionally critical of reservation policies into supporters of the same overnight.

Since October, the CBI has been embroiled in an intra-agency squabble between its two top officers, Alok Verma and Rakesh Asthana, over the Bureau's independence. The SC verdict reinstating Verma is a huge setback to the government, which had sent him on forced leave.

The arrest of Suman Chattopadhyay in the iCore chit fund scam failed to make headlines in any Bengali newspapers – marking a stark difference from the infamous Saradha scam. What explains this silence?

We miss the fiery Ramdas Athawale of the Dalit Panther days, who was solely focused on the interests of the Dalit community. As an ardent Bhim Sainik, and given your lack of support during the Bhima-Koregaon conflict, I feel that the BJP is tying you down.

2018 can be defined as a year full of corkers of greater affronts to science and history. Tripura CM Biplab Kumar Deb’s “internet Mahabharata” remark and Satyapal Singh’s dismissal of Darwin's theory have made them pioneers of alt-facts.

In Bengal, food is the only religion that matters. And in the current scheme of things, Mamata Banerjee is the head priestess at the altar of this all-powerful reigning deity. If the BJP wants to make inroads in the state, it needs to understand that trying to tell a Bengali what he should eat for lunch is a terrible idea.

Nehru’s 55th death anniversary marks the rare occasion where he isn’t being criticised by rivals of the Congress party. The last few years have seen Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru become the right wing’s favourite punching bag.

The history of the Congress, and Indian politics in general, has always been cyclical. And the supposed “new guard” of the Congress, with leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Sachin Pilot, and Jyotiraditya Scindia, is exactly like the old guard.

It’s taken 35 years, but Sajjan Kumar’s conviction is a watershed moment for the surviving kin of the more than 3,000 people who lost their lives during the four days of mob violence in 1984. Here’s looking at you Kamal Nath and the other leaders accused in 2002.

For months, opposition leaders have shouted that the BJP engaged in crony capitalism with French Rafale jet manufacturer, Dassault Aviation, and Anil Ambani’s Reliance Naval and Engineering. But today, the Supreme Court concluded that it was outside its purview to examine the business of the government.

Like a naive lover or a doting Indian mother, the bhakt is blind to the BJP’s faults and deaf to their lies. Now that their reign is on shaky ground, will the bhakt resort to talking about actual policy and infrastructure, or will the propaganda intensify?

By not naming a CM candidate before the assembly elections in Rajasthan, the Congress was able to get the best of both worlds: It was able to utilise Sachin Pilot to grab the attention of the young voter, and Gehlot’s grassroots support to ensure it brought in the numbers. Now it’s spoilt for choice.

Indian liberals have an almost compulsive tendency to bring up the 2002 Gujarat pogrom, under the BJP’s watch. But the Congress’ Kamal Nath, slated to be the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, allegedly played a central role in the violence that claimed the lives of hundreds of Sikh citizens in Delhi in 1984.