'Because it is the only public sector company in this sector, currently.'
The BJP, which won the Samajwadi Party strongholds of Rampur and Azamgarh in 2022 bypolls, hopes to wrest Mainpuri too.
As the comparison between 2014 and 2019 shows, the voter turnout is not only lower than in 2019 but also lower than in 2014 in some of the larger states where polling took place.
The change in Anantnag's demographic after delimitation has added layers of political complexities to the constituency with Pahari-Gujjar, Jammu versus Kashmir dimensions.
Gujarat has witnessed the steepest decline in the number of contestants in the fray for its 26 seats, from 371 five years ago to 266 in 2024.
Payments banks are expecting to get the rights to offer small-ticket loans sometime soon, according to an industry source familiar with the matter. The industry has been in talks with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for some time in seeking lending rights.
The first time the Election Commission has taken cognisance of a model code of conduct complaint against a sitting prime minister.
The small finance bank model may still be testing the water some 10 years since its launch. According to banking experts, the regulator has taken a cautious approach in granting approvals. Unity Small Finance Bank was the last one to get a licence in the category in November 2021.
The BSP leader won the Bijnor Lok Sabha seat in 1989, her first electoral triumph.
Exigencies of electoral politics and individual ambitions often stoke family feuds and sibling rivalries.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
With the RLD part of the NDA now, Sanjeev Kumar Balyan would expect an easier contest than five years back when the RLD, SP and BSP had an alliance.
The finance ministry is considering amending the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970, which governs public-sector banks (PSBs), to make suitable provisions for allowing PSBs to transfer shares to the Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) when dividends of such shares remain unclaimed by the investors for seven consecutive years. "While Section 10B of the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970, allows the transfer of unclaimed dividends to the IEPF, it, however, does not mention a provision for transferring unclaimed shares and may now be amended by the next government to allow such transfers to happen," said a person familiar with the matter.
12 of the 20 MPs with the highest winning margins in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls have not been re-nominated by their parties for the 2024 general elections.
If the Congress is contesting fewer seats than ever before, the BJP is set to contest its highest-ever number of Lok Sabha seats.
The share of candidates who were successful among the BJP was 56.5% in 2019. It was 5% for the Congress.
There are 218,442 voters over 100 years on the electoral rolls.
The BJP would need to contest more seats than it did in 2014 and 2019.
Nearly Rs 3,400 crore (Rs 34 billion) in cash and other items were seized in the elections in 2022-2023, an increase of 835 per cent over 2017-2018.
The MNS joining the BJP-led alliance in Maharashtra could help it with a 'Thackeray versus Thackeray' narrative, fielding Raj Thackeray, an articulate speaker, to take on his cousin Uddhav Thackeray.