According to an official release, the voting percentage is likely to go up when reports from all polling stations are obtained, as polling was scheduled until 6 pm in many constituencies.
Sounding the Congress' poll bugle in the state, Gandhi attacked the Modi government repeatedly alleging that it was working with an approach of 'Hum do, Hamare do' -- a term he recently used while speaking in Lok Sabha to claim that the country is being run by only four people.
According to BJP insiders, every Union minister has been given 3-4 seats to mentor and has been told to work hard on these constituencies in the next 20 months to ensure the party's victory.
The chief minister's statement came in the backdrop of tension between the two Northeastern states following alleged encroachment of land in Cachar district by the people of Mizoram.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party managed to notch up a morale-boosting win on its 'Mission Northeast' on Thursday by retaining Tripura emphatically, despite anti-incumbency and newcomer Tipra Motha playing spoilers to its party, while also piggy-backing to power in Nagaland on Neiphiu Rio-led NDPP's shoulder.
Souradeep Sengupta, a guest lecturer in the Physics department at Gurucharan College, was arrested from his residence in the Itkhola area on Friday night after a case was lodged against him based on a complaint filed by a student.
Sixteen per cent of the candidates contesting in the first phase of Assam assembly elections have declared criminal cases against themselves, according to a report by poll rights group Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).
The exit poll results were released at the end of the polling in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, marking the closure of voting in four states and Puducherry.
"The voting percentage is likely to go upwards when reports from all polling stations are obtained as polling is scheduled till 6 pm in many constituencies. Final figures will be known on Saturday after the scrutiny of form 17A," the EC said.
'Earlier, a lot of fear was in the minds of people that the BJP is anti-Christian and anti-minority, but over the years people have learnt to accept that the BJP is just another national party.'
This management team will coordinate with all state units of the BJP and its allies for the presidential election and is also expected to guide its elected voting representatives on the voting process.
The Congress 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra', led by Rahul Gandhi, is scheduled to enter West Bengal from Assam on Thursday, amid political ripples within the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) in the state.
The BJP will enter this election, as it does every election, as if it is fighting to prevent a 2004-style defeat. This is a party that wins big because it always behaves as if its back is to the wall, predicts Mihir S Sharma.
The BJP on Wednesday also named its in-charges for assembly bypolls to four seats in Tripura.
Polling is scheduled in all 20 seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, six seats in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.
The Centre has summoned to New Delhi the chief secretaries and directors general of police (DGPs) of Assam and Mizoram for a meeting on Wednesday while the restive inter-state border was calm, a day after armed clashes left six dead and over 50 injured, officials said.
Addressing a big rally in Kolkata to launch the Bharatiya Janata Party's Lok Sabha campaign, Shah launched a blistering attack on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the issues of appeasement, infiltration, corruption and political violence, alleging she has "destroyed" the state.
The BJP needs to win maximum number of seats from northeast to strengthen Prime Minister Narendra Modi so that development of the region continues.
'The Bodos and the Assamese were at each other's throats, the Assamese Muslims and the Bengali Muslims were at each other's throats, the Bengali speaking Muslims and Hindus were coming together against the Assamese speaking caste Hindus and the plains tribes and vice versa.'
'If the BJP does not change its stand, we will hope that those who are in favour of protecting Ladakh come to power.'
Also, the thin winning margins of his last two successful campaigns are proving to be thorns for the sitting MLA.
Assam's opposition parties including the BJP, AGP and AIUDF accused the ruling Congress of murdering democracy even as party won the election to two of the Rajya Sabha after four of the BJP MLAs and two AIUDF MLAs decided to vote for Congress candidate defying a party whip to vote for opposition's common candidate Jayanta Baruah, a media baron.
The widely expected development underlines the party's preference for continuity as it gears up for the all-important Lok Sabha polls next year, expected in April-May.
The satta market is accepting bets on how many times Modiji will mention Nehru at his election rallies, says A Ganesh Nadar with a wink.
The party is eyeing at expanding its footprint across the country and has tied up with the Congress to contest the Lok Sabha polls against the BJP in Delhi, Haryana and Gujarat.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Monday said he replaced India with Bharat in his Twitter bio to reflect his 'journey' from the Congress to Bharatiya Janata Party, in a dig at the opposition coalition.
'Is it not a fact that all good leaders in the Congress have left the party?'
Obama in an interview to CNN on Thursday had said that India may "pull apart" if the rights of the religious and ethnic minorities are not upheld.
'Gogoi will be remembered as someone who recovered Assam as a state, as a people and society from the fear of insurgency that had struck the state from the 1980s till 2000.'
The states and union territories where the elections are being held in this phase are Assam (4), Bihar (5), Chhattisgarh (7), Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (2), Goa (2), Gujarat (25), Karnataka (14), Maharashtra (11), Madhya Pradesh (8), Uttar Pradesh (10) and West Bengal (4). The BJP has bagged the Surat seat unopposed.
Over 73.44 lakh voters exercised their franchise in 10,592 polling stations spread over 13 districts in the Barak Valley, the hill regions and parts of central and lower Assam.
Delayed by more than four years, rules for the CAA are a must for its implementation.
The agitators belonging to 70 organisations, led by KMSS and Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad, gathered at the secretariat to protest against the passing of the bill in the Lower House of Parliament.
With the Rajya Sabha term of Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi ending, the BJP will have no Muslim MP among its 395 members of Parliament.
"Sometimes Sachin Tendular scored a century, sometimes he got out for Zero," Biswa said while reacting to party's loss in Karnataka.
On poll eve, both the BJP and the Congress claimed they were headed towards a majority and would form the government.
The Trinamool Congress registered a decisive victory in West Bengal on Sunday, contrary to results of most exit polls which predicted a tight race between the BJP and the TMC with an edge to the Mamata Banerjee-led party.
Voting was underway on Friday in 102 Lok Sabha seats spread across 21 states and Union territories in the first of the seven phases of the world's largest electoral exercise, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging voters to exercise their franchise in record numbers.
'For the last two elections, the Congress manifesto has been thrown into the dustbin.' 'This manifesto will also be thrown into the dustbin.'
BJP is set to win majority of 32 municipality boards and 42 town committees in Assam
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