Electioneering ended in Madhya Pradesh at 6 pm except in Naxalites-hit districts of Balaghat, Mandla and Dindori, where campaigning drew to a close early at 3 pm.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the challenge of the Covid pandemic is not fully over yet, with the increase in coronavirus cases in the last two weeks manifesting the need to stay alert, and underlined that vaccination remains the biggest protective shield against the virus.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday named 14 candidates for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls including former Union minister R P N Singh and Sudhanshu Trivedi -- the only outgoing MP renominated by the party.
District election officer Mahendra Bahadur Singh said Aman Giri won by a margin of 34,298 votes. He received 1,24,810 votes while Tiwari got 90,512 votes.
Names of BJP veterans like L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi also do not figure in the list.
A new idol of Ram Lalla sculpted by Mysuru-based Arun Yogiraj has been selected for installation at the Ram temple in Ayodhya, temple trust's general secretary Champat Rai said on Monday.
In 2011, Modi had refused to wear a skullcap.
The senior BJP leader said voters have always rejected coalition politics as the political parties forming such an alliance don't have any policy or leadership.
In a statement, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh questioned the motive behind the inauguration of the "incomplete" temple by the leaders of the BJP and the RSS.
The decision to terminate his services faced severe criticism on social media.
Exigencies of electoral politics and individual ambitions often stoke family feuds and sibling rivalries.
The film, which was released on May 5, has kicked up a political storm.
Rahul Gandhi could be where Modi has not been. Modi aspired to be with the pantheon of gods on the walls, while Rahul could sit with the family because there is a family member in the picture.
Never before has the BJP faced such a crisis over the nomination of the Chief Minister as it is facing now, discovers Prakash Bhandari, veteran observer of Rajasthan politics.
No one wants to curb the enthusiasm being seen among the people, but at the same time officials feel nothing should be left to chance, as the flood of humanity thronging the temple area poses problems for security personnel.
To beat BJP, you either deny them a critical mass of Hindu vote or build a regional leader and party strong enough to protect their turf, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Known for delivering time-bound results, Sharma earned Modi's confidence as his secretary during his tenure as the Gujarat chief minister by successfully handling the Vibrant Gujarat campaign to get investments to the state.
Without naming Gandhi and referring to the Congress leader's remarks made in London -- that structures of Indian democracy are under 'brutal attack', Modi termed it an insult to 12th century social reformer Basaveshwara, the people of Karnataka, India's great traditions and its citizens.
Yogi Adityanath took the oath as Uttar Pradesh chief minister at the auspicious time of 1600, Friday, March 25, 2022, at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana cricket stadium in Lucknow.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has said that after fulfilling Bharatiya Janata Party's poll promise on Ram Temple construction in Ayodhya, work has begun in Mathura and Vrindavan as well.
At a time when the BJP's stars are at the top on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls, the Puri-Joshimath Sankaracharyas may have kick-started a row whose efforts might be to divide Hindus, not in the name of castes, but on what passes for greater belief, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The brutal violence of the UP government's first response to the anti-CAA protests suggests that the BJP will test drive the NPR/NRC in UP, where it has both a massive majority in the assembly and a chief minister whose instinct for Hindutva extremism and whose appetite for punitive policing allows a prime minister as darkly majoritarian as Modi to appear statesman-like,' notes Mukul Kesavan.
Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party's working committee member Ram Iqbal Singh on Thursday said there would have been no agitation by farmers had the Centre consulted them before enacting the new agricultural laws.
The BJP campaign highlighted Yogi's persona as a tough-as-nails leader and an incorruptible man with no nest to feather; Modi's charisma which was turned on full blast in the penultimate phases; Amit Shah's ground work; a well-oiled party organisation, and the RSS's back-up.
Spread over 10 districts, polling in these constituencies will be held from 7 am till 6 pm on Thursday.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party won the mayoral elections in 10 of the 17 municipal corporations in Uttar Pradesh, results for which were announced on Saturday, virtually adding a third engine to its "double-engine" government.
If the Opposition has any chance at the prime minister's job, it can happen only if they all stop dropping names and work at the grassroots-level, state-wise, suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
"If you look at newspapers, you will see that Modi Ji was the first to greet Yogij Ji (on birthday). In fact, we are of the view that Yogi ji is the most competent implement to fulfil the dreams of Modijee," he said.
'Modi wants to go down in history not necessarily as India's first overtly Hindu RSS pracharak prime minister, but as a world statesman who built the idea of India as a great nation.'
'What has hit me between the eyes is Modi's seeming utter contempt for public perception of the yogi being an unrepentant bigot who also carries the baggage of many criminal cases against him,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
'What are the circumstances at that time? Had you thought Modi will come after Vajpayee?'
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and the tribal face of the party, Vishnu Deo Sai, on Wednesday took oath as the chief minister of Chhattisgarh, 10 days after the saffron party returned to power after a gap of five years by unseating Congress in the assembly elections.
The BJP stormed back to power in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, trouncing its main rival SP, with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath asserting that people have buried the politics of caste and religion.
The devotion to the deity is such that even commerce is not untouched by the spiritual feel in the holy city. Images of the grand temple is finding places even on visiting cards, posters, calendars and even signages.
Campaigning for the first phase of the Gujarat assembly elections to be held on December 1 ended at 5 pm on Tuesday.
In 2017, a retired R&AW officer conveyed that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was keen to get monarchy restored in Nepal and suggested that I support these efforts.
"The way in which UP has controlled the second Covid wave and stopped its spread is unprecedented," the prime minister, who arrived at his parliamentary constituency earlier in the morning on Thursday, said while addressing a gathering.
How Modi retrieves the situation and how he enlists new allies in the next two years will show if the BJP is fighting fit, report Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari.
