Live Updates: Dr Roy analyses the assembly election results in UP, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab.
The BJP rode a Modi super-wave to a massive victory in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday, with the party winning 312 of the state's 403 seats. Along with allies, the number goes up to 325. Holi has arrived two days early for the party as it celebrates its most crucial win since winning the 2014 national election. The BJP has also swept neighbouring Uttarakhand. At the BJP's Delhi headquarters, party chief Amit Shah celebrated with jubilant party workers and credited the BJP's victory to PM Modi's leadership, describing him as "the most popular leader since Independence." The mega UP election, held in seven rounds, is seen as a bellwether for the 2019 national election. The win is seen as an endorsement of the PM's stewardship of the economy after his decision last November to scrap high value notes, aimed at eliminating corruption and black money.
Following are the highlights of Prannoy Roy's analysis with top BJP leaders of PM Modi's big win:Dr Prannoy Roy: Today (Saturday) has seen one of the biggest and most significant elections in decades. Hello and welcome to a new India. We are all now part of Modi's nation. And it's here to stay for another 8 years at least. Today marks such an enormous change that the BJP brand is now being subsumed under the Modi charisma. Not a single voter that I met in UP said they were voting for the BJP. They were all voting for Modi Modi Modi. With this transformation comes great expectations - in our show we plan to look ahead and assess how India will change under Modi. Will there be more reforms - will there be more schemes for the poor - like the popular gas cylinders which worked tremendously well in this election and many others. Will India move socialist or will it veer to the right? Will the Modi era be revisiting the Congress - or even the Indira Gandhi focus on the poor - only implemented with tougher governance and greater efficiency. I must add that in addition to Mr Modi - there has been another huge winner in these tense elections across conflict-ridden states. We pay our deepest respect to the Election Commission. The organisation and conduct of these elections has been outstanding. Hardly a step wrong. The election commission - you make us proud.
First of all these elections were a replica of 2014 Modi wave
Nobody though the Modi wave of 2014 would be repeated nearly 2.5 years into his government
But if you look at this GFX, you'll see Modi has done better than in 2014.
So is it the end of caste-based elections? The vote across caste lines is pretty homogenous.
Union Minister Uma Bharti: I also thank EC to begin with.
Akhilesh's mistake was to take his father for granted. Rahul thought just because he had a Gandhi tag, he could make fun of Modiji. But for us, expectations are high now.
The experience that I have had with Modji - and I have worked under Atal ji too - is that we have focused on the disparity between the rich and the poor.
The first step of curbing corruption starts at home. We haven't had a single charge of corruption against the government in 2.5 years. The charges that have been there were so frivolous that they died down immediately.
UP expects us to come down very hard on corruption.
If you ask me, one thing that worries me is that the implementation of the clean Ganga mission - we hope to make up the lost time in working with an uncooperative UP government.
The other challenge is to reduce the rich-poor divide.
We are not at all worried about 2019 - we are going to win.
The site of the Rama Mandir is in UP but the sentiment is across the country and the decision has an impact worldwide.
We never saw it in the context of elections, only saw it as a sentiment nationally. The fact that site was Lord Rama's, has been settled. It is just a dispute of land now, it can be resolved with love.
The only thing that worries me today is the Clean Ganga mission.
We have already said we will focus on developing Bundelkhand. Sometime in the future, Bundelkhand will have to become a separate state.
But we won't wait for that. We will keep working for it.
The difference cannot be compared (between Atal-Advani era and Modi-Shah era) because the challenges are different.
This is for the first time we are the largest party and the opposition is fractured.
They keep trying to spoil our image - Ramjas, JNU - but they cant dent our vote.
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley: If you look at economic reforms which came to a standstill in the last 10 years, everyone would have to concede that we have changed that.
Notwithstanding a global slowdown, we have been able to stimulate growth. UPA just focused on redistribution of existing resources.
I think he (PM Modi) is a great asset. But the BJP, unlike the Congress, is a structured political party. We are a cardre-based party. There was Vajpayee. Today, it is Mr Modi. Tomorrow, it will be someone else. The BJP is a structured political party, the Congress is a crowd around one family.
The last three years, we won most major elections but lost only two - Delhi, Bihar. But the direction of the government wasn't impacted by them.
If there is a large number of NGOs that aren't complying with regulation, the government is free to take action. When heads of global NGOs came and met me and I pointed to them how they were funding political activities against the government. They themselves wanted to introspect. It is not like the government stifles criticism, we face more criticism than any other previous government.
Propaganda is no substitute for performance. Merely because of a nice slogan, people did not forget what Akhilesh actually did.
If you are decisive and if you are confident about the merit of your decision, people will support it This election has sent this message.
Former Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit: The word (for the Congress) is existential crisis.
If you need to be a party that can take on the challenge of the leader we face today, you also need to become one that responds in a real-time basis. You cannot become a hierarchical structure.
A large part of our leadership, their style has to retire.
Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad: That this success has come within 2.5 years of Modiji's government, is no small thing.
Congress party has won just seven seats in Uttar Pradesh.
Outrageous comments have already been condemned by the leadership.
We never discriminated in our allocation for social schemes. I know there is an image problem for us created by some of our friends.
There are two ways to look at development of minorities - either tokenism (so many seats to the community) or you do real work which uplifts their lives.
Don't forget we made a Muslim man President of India during our government - APJ Abdul Kalam.
When we say Congress-
mukt Bharat, we mean we want them out of power but remain in the opposition for all their omissions and commissions and corruption.
We are completely against violence. We are very much in favour of student activism.
This kind of a new combination of separatists and Maoists who talk of breaking apart India; You can shout against the government but campaigning for the disintegration of India is unacceptable.
Union Minister Prakash Javadekar: The Benami Property Act, which was enacted 30 years ago, was not notified. PM has said we are going to implement this properly.
When Mayawati raised doubt about EVMs, her only proof was how can Muslims vote for BJP.
Senior Congress Leader Pawan Bansal: There was always an upsurge of support for the Congress in Punjab, we knew how well we would do.
AAP leader Raghav Chadha: We will go back to the drawing board, calibrate our approach.
The outcome of the Punjab election defies logic. We are disappointed.
There could be many reasons. We certainly don't have the well-oiled electoral machinery as the Congress and the BJP, we don't have as much resources. Maybe that could be one of the reasons.
Samajwadi Party's Madhukar Jetly: First all, I want to congratulate all the leaders of the BJP
.Where has the Muslim vote gone and why did they not vote in the same fashion as prevoious elections?
UP BJP chief Keshav Prasad Maurya: UP is still standing strong with BJP. In 2019, UP will vote for the BJP
.The first order of business will be loan waiver for farmers, end of
goonda-raj, end crimes against women and end corruption.
You are speaking to the chief of the party.
When BSP won in 2007, then EVM mahcines were, in 2012 EVM machines were fine. Today they have a problem?
Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas is not just a slogan for BJP, rich-poor, Hindu-Muslim all are with us. People have rejected politics of appeasement, we will work only for development.
We have promised that we will do what we can within the constitutional framework on the Ram Mandir.
If we had a winnable Muslim, we would have given them a ticket. We wouldn't do it just for tokenism.
Akali Dal MP Naresh Gujral: After 10 years of rule there has to be some anti-incumbency. There were unsubstantiated, vicious allegations made against some of our leaders. That has stuck.
We retained quite a bit of our vote share.