The poll panel has convened a press conference at 4.30 pm.
The stakes are significant for the BJP in this round as the party had in 2019 won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, that will go to polls on May 7.
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.
In the last five years, 480 candidates with declared cases related to hate speech have contested elections to state assemblies, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, the ADR said.
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.
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.
'After a month of working on the new machine, I realised that the black glass on the VVPAT lets the programmer manipulate not just the electronic system, but the paper vote too.' 'And it will not be detected even during the mock poll or the actual voting because of the black glass.'
The suspense over whether Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will contest the polls from Amethi and Raebareli respectively continued.
'Not just Maharashtra, the Congress has not fielded even one Muslim candidate from Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Goa.'
The renowned education reformist said the end of the hunger strike is the beginning of the new phase of the ongoing agitation.
National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah said notifying the rules for the CAA days before the announcement of the Lok Sabha elections shows the Bharatiya Janata Party is not confident about winning 400 seats in the ensuing polls.
Delayed by more than four years, rules for the CAA are a must for its implementation.
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.
Lok Sabha constituencies that sprung a surprise in the 2024 polls.
Senior Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi on Tuesday asserted that her party, if voted to power in Assam, will bring a new law to 'nullify' the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in the state.
'The continuous and mysterious praise of the BJP and the chief minister by AIUDF leadership and senior members have affected the public perception of the Congress party'
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 Kirti Chakra awardees are Major Digvijay Singh Rawat of 21st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment (Special Forces), Major Deependra Vikram Basnet from the Sikh Regiment's fourth battalion and Havildar Pawan Kumar Yadav from the 21st battalion of the Mahar Regiment, according to the defence ministry.
Robert Vadra said he has tested positive after he came in contact with someone who was COVID positive.
A beam of sunlight fell directly on Ram Lalla's idol at the new temple in Ayodhya on noon Wednesday, marking the 'Surya Tilak' of the idol on the first Ram Navami since its consecration.
'The Congress is not listening to its young leaders. That is why the situation of the party is worsening in all states'
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.
BJP minister Sum Ronghang, the hill areas development and mines and minerals minister, alleged that the BJP functions in a "non-transparent manner".
While the BPF and the UPPL are considered rivals in the Bodo-dominated areas, there was no pre-poll alliance among other parties as well.
The prime minister was apparently referring to Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg's controversial 'toolkit', which she tweeted and then deleted, outlining ways in which people can participate in the farmers protest.
'If the BJP does not change its stand, we will hope that those who are in favour of protecting Ladakh come to power.'
The 84-year old veteran Congressman, who died from post-COVID complications on Monday, was a Nehru-Gandhi family loyalist.
'For the last two elections, the Congress manifesto has been thrown into the dustbin.' 'This manifesto will also be thrown into the dustbin.'
Six decades and more later, we are now captives of our identities. Every poll is based on elaborate calculations of electability of candidates on the basis of their castes and other narrow definers. That, along with voter promiscuity, is what defines our political culture, which remains stubbornly resistant to any change, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
'Is it not a fact that all good leaders in the Congress have left the party?'
'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 momentum the BJP has in its favour is partly due to the anti-incumbency wave the Congress is battling.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday asserted that the Bharatiya Janata Party will win more than 300 Lok Sabha seats across the country in next year's general elections and return to power for the third consecutive term with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the helm.
Sheoran, it is learnt, has the backing of the six wrestlers, including Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat and Sakshi Malik, who led the protests against Brij Bhushan at Jantar Mantar.
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.
'After the NRC it is proved that whatever the BJP was saying about illegal Bangladeshi migrant was a lie and Indian Muslims have their documents to prove their citizenship.'
The BJP, which rules the Centre, is in power in Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and is all set to get Madhya Pradesh back and snatch Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the Congress after today's vote count.
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.
Sarma, while responding to reporters' questions on high price of veggies in Guwahati, had said, "Vegetables are not priced so high in villages. Here the Miya vendors charge us more. Had it been Assamese vendors selling vegetables, they wouldn't have fleeced their own people."
An Independent Rajya Sabha MP on Monday lodged a police complaint against Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, alleging that the Bharatiya Janata Party leader has made a "hate speech" against the 'Miya' community on the previous day.
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