Gandhi, on the other hand, has also reached out directly to the party workers in the three states to know their top choice for the chief minister post through an internal mobile messaging app, party leaders said.
Veteran Communist Part of India-Marxist leader Mohammed Salim in an interview with Rediff.com's Indrani Roy speaks about volatile atmosphere in Bengal this election season, the prospects of the Left and more. Edited excerpts:
BJP won 100 wards out of 198, as the results were declared on Tuesday by the State Election Commission for the polls held on August 22.
The Gujarat high court on Friday stayed the implementation of a law that makes voting compulsory in the civic body elections in the state.
About 56 per cent was the overall turnout for 10 municipal corporations across Maharashtra.
The Centre has sought a detailed report from the West Bengal government on the circumstances leading to the violence.
A day after a Trinamool district president allegedly asked party men to attack the police with bombs and burn houses of Independent candidates, a TMC member of Parliament on Thursday asked party activists to "beat up Communist Party of India-Marxist workers with shoes".
Prime Minister Modi said BJP's performance in Parliamentary, assembly and local polls across India over the last few days illustrated that people want all-round progress and will not tolerate corruption and misgovernance.
The Election Commission, however, termed the allegations 'baseless'.
The EC received complaints from five places that EVMs were connecting to external devices via bluetooth, but after inquiry, it was found that there was 'no substance' in the complaints.
On Thursday, violent mobs went on the rampage in the Nagaland capital vandalising and setting on fire government offices and vehicles, prompting deployment of five columns of army to bring the situation under control.
Six persons, including a woman, were killed and 18 were injured in violence and CRPF firing in the fourth phase of the West Bengal panchayat elections on Monday. Polling in four districts saw a voter turnout of 25 per cent.
The Andhra Pradesh Government has set up about 100 relief camps across the state and air-dropped food packets to people affected by heavy rains and floods even as the situation in East and West Godavari districts turned grim.
Amid stray violence, Rajasthan on Sunday witnessed a record turnout of 74.38 per cent in the assembly election, which will decide the fate of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his bete noire Bharatiya Janata Party's Vasundhra Raje among others.
The Opposition can only question us if we stop them from campaigning. The opportunities are equal for all, he said.
Sporadic violence marked the third phase of panchayat elections in West Bengal on Friday covering three districts of Howrah, North 24-Parganas and South 24-Parganas where an average 25 per cent polling was recorded in the first four hours of voting.
Trinamool Congress on Saturday stayed away from the all-party meeting convened by the state Election Commission in Kolkata to discuss the upcoming panchayat polls in West Bengal, prompting the opposition Congress and Communist Party of India-Marxist to accuse the ruling party of disrespecting a constitutional body.
TTV Dinakaran's road to reaching the poll stage could still be strewn with legal difficulties, as much as political problems from other new players, like actors Kamal Hassan and Rajinikanth, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
For successive governments the Election Commission remains a 'holy cow', where unhealthy precedents are allowed to be nurtured since Independence, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Three persons, including husband of a Communist Party of India-Marxist candidate, were killed on Monday and several others injured in violence during the second phase of panchayat elections in West Bengal where 75 per cent polling was recorded.
'As the financier, she controls the party.'
There is no denying that the Deepa identity has overnight caught the people's imagination across the state. But converting that into an imagery and from there as support and vote-base is a different matter altogether, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Upendra Kushwaha, president of the Rashtriya Lok Samta Party, which is part of the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre, admits the Bihar assembly elections will be a close contest and will be fought along the lines of caste.
Formidable challenges including funds for the farm loan-waiver, and law and order stare him at his face, with the opposition claiming the misses have outnumbered the hits.
The 'AIADMK symbol issue' may be a fit case for the courts and the legislature to provide for a new law for application in similar fluid, dynamic political situations, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Be it Assam, Haryana or Delhi, the Congress is facing one crisis after another regarding its Rajya Sabha nominations, reports Renu Mittal.
In private, AIADMK spokespersons say that the raid on Chief Secretary P Ramamohana Rao might be aimed at weakening the AIADMK, and demotivating the party from selecting/electing Jayalalithaa's confidante, Sasikala Natarajan, as her successor -- first as party head then possibly in the government, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The stage is now set for the first substantial round of polling in the Lok Sabha elections on Thursday, involving nearly 11 crore voters in 92 seats spread across 11 states, including Delhi and the national capital region and the riot-hit Muzaffarnagar.
'The failure of the ECI to follow the Registration of Electoral Rules and create verified and audited rolls or even verifiable and auditable ones, highlight that the entire electoral roll is merely a compilation of names without any effort or intention for completeness, correctness or fair play.' 'We are fooling ourselves by electing our representatives based on faulty electoral rolls that do not represent the people of the constituency. Elections based on these rolls are neither free nor fair. Democracy is under siege,' says Dr Anupam Saraph.
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