The Congress party suffered a crushing defeat in the Delhi elections, failing to secure a single seat in the 70-member assembly for the third consecutive time. Key candidates, including Sheila Dikshit's son, Sandeep Dikshit, lost their deposits. The only consolation for the party was a slight improvement in its vote share, which they attribute to a vigorous campaign and a renewed focus on contesting elections independently. However, the defeat raises questions about the party's ability to compete in the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections, particularly in light of its performance in other recent state elections.
The dates for the much-awaited WFI elections have been confirmed, with the results also set to be announced on the same day.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
This will be the first full-year Budget of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government since it came to power for a third consecutive term in July last year.
Former Maharashtra minister Baba Siddique, who was shot dead in Mumbai, was a popular figure in Bollywood circles and had earned praise for supplying life-saving medicines to patients during the Covid pandemic.
BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis was sworn in as the new Chief Minister of Maharashtra in a grand ceremony at Azad Maidan in Mumbai.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
'Gyanendra back on the throne would be bad news for the Nepali people. He may not have learnt from his experience, but we have.'
Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and his son Karan are not part of the electoral college for the upcoming Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) elections.
There are 64 vacancies in the legislative assemblies of various states and one in Lok Sabha.
"Frequent elections not only impose a huge burden on human resources but also impede the development process due to the promulgation of the model code of conduct. Therefore, a sustained debate is required on the subject of simultaneous elections and all political parties need to arrive at a consensus on this issue," he had said.
Kamat is the second minister in Nitish Kumar's cabinet to succumb to the infection this week.
Acting Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, in his first visit to the national capital after leading his ruling alliance to an unprecedented second straight term in the state.
The maximum 80 companies, as per an official order, will be drawn from the Central Reserve Police Force followed by 70 from the Sashastra Seema Bal, 55 from the Border Security Force, 50 from the Central Industrial Security Force, 30 from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police force and 15 from the RPF.
Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader Hemant Soren on Sunday met Jharkhand Governor Santosh Kumar Gangwar and staked claim to form the government, soon after leaders of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) in the state unanimously elected him as the legislature party leader.
Police personnel removed him and his supporters from the protest site as they were holding the demonstration near a restricted area, and thus it was "illegal", a senior officer said.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday expressed apprehension that the 2024 Lok Sabha elections would be the last opportunity for the people to save democracy, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi might prefer dictatorship in case his party wins the upcoming polls.
Outgoing WFI president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh has convened a meeting on Sunday to nominate his panel, which will contest the upcoming WFI elections to elect the new office-bearers.
'On the governmental level, we are saying all the right things, like beti bachao, beti padhao. Yet, a High Court judge in Prayagraj, who is highly educated, has studied the Constitution and its laws, says breaking the naada of a pyjama or touching the breasts of a minor girl is not part of the reform process. Just giving lip service is not enough, the general mindset has to change.'
Talking about the brutal killing of Krishnaiah in 1994, G Uma Krishnaiah said her husband was killed for no fault of his.
While P Muralidhar Rao, BJP general secretary, says, 'Digital electioneering is here to stay until the elections in 2021,' the BJP's rallies in Bihar will not be confined to cyberspace. Its strategists have devised other ways of getting around the hygiene protocol that Covid-19 has entailed.
Sanjay Jha's importance lies in his connections to senior BJP and RSS leaders to maintain a smooth relationship within the NDA government in Bihar and at the Centre and to contest the 2025 Bihar assembly elections together under Nitish Kumar's leadership.
The Election Commission of India has set up more than 200 polling stations within housing societies in the urban areas of Uttar Pradesh to increase the voter turnout in the politically crucial state.
The month-long assembly elections, Bihar's second in 2005, came to an end Saturday as the fourth phase of polling in 41 constituencies passed off by and large peacefully, with an estimated 45 to 50% voter turnout.\n\n
'The commission has taken a serious view of the laxity on the part of political parties and candidates, on the ground, in terms of maintaining crowd discipline'
Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Delhi has been sent as a special officer to oversee the counting process in Meerut and Bihar's CEO to Varanasi.
Sinha would oversee the presidential poll process as an international observer.
Seeking to ensure secrecy of votes, the Election Commission has issued a set of dos and don'ts to the Bihar poll machinery.
The Bihar assembly election results appeared to belie predictions made by most exit polls which had given a clear edge to the Rashtriya Janata Dal-led Mahagathbandhan.
Chaudhary is the first Dalit leader to occupy the august office.
Among the fatalities recorded on Friday, the maximum 17 were from Uttar Pradesh, 14 from Bihar, five from Odisha and four from Jharkhand, where officials said more than 1,300 people are hospitalised with heatstroke conditions.
'The Congress is trying to reinvent itself -- the caste census demand, OBC emphasis, the anti-corporate thrust, especially on Adani etc -- all this is not standard Congress strategy.'
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday assured his government will continue the Ladki Bahin Yojana and fulfil Mahayuti's pre-poll promise of hiking the monthly stipend under the scheme to Rs 2,100 from Rs 1,500 now to eligible women.
The delegation told Shinde that Samata Party was an old political outfit from Bihar and 'mashaal' (flaming torch) was its election symbol.
JMM leader Hemant Soren was sworn in as the 14th chief minister of Jharkhand in a grand ceremony in Ranchi, amid the presence of a galaxy of INDIA bloc leaders. This is Soren's fourth stint as chief minister. The JMM-led alliance won a majority in the recent assembly polls, securing 56 seats in the 81-member assembly.
'The political situation in the country will depend on the electoral outcome in Maharashtra.'
The SEC, which held a meeting on Sunday evening, went through reports of vote-tampering and violence which affected polling in many places, and passed the order, an official said.
Acting on a complaint lodged against the Bharatiya Janata Party's national president Amit Shah's "firecrackers in Pakistan" comment, the state election office on Friday sought report from the returning officer on the remark.
The EC said polling percentage in the Anantnag-Rajouri seat in Jammu and Kashmir is the highest in 40 years.
Lakhs of voters will have to bear the searing heat when they step out to exercise their franchise in the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Friday.
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