The marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha ended on Saturday with the seventh phase of elections witnessing an approximate voter turnout of 62.36 per cent, amid clashes between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters in Sandeshkhali and some other parts of West Bengal.
Chirag Paswan said he believes two classes of people -- rich and poor -- exist in the society and persons of different castes and religions fall in both categories.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's tally in Rajya Sabha has dipped below 90 for the first time in several years but the party and its allies are expected to not only recoup the their losses but also make some gains when by-elections to fill the existing vacancies are held in the coming weeks.
Scenes from the election campaign in New Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Amritsar, Ranchi and Guwahati.
There is little doubt that the prime minister's own charisma exceeds that of his party, but 2024 is proof that no party can ultimately depend on one person to deliver victory all the time, points out R Jagannathan.
Here are glimpses of famous faces who got their fingers inked.
"Word of the day! Definition of *snollygoster* US dialect: a shrewd, unprincipled politician. First Known Use: 1845. Most recent use: 26/7/17," Tharoor had tweeted in 2017.
Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) MPs, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress Parliamentary Party chief Sonia Gandhi and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, staged a protest in Parliament premises on Wednesday over the alleged discrimination against opposition-ruled states in the Union Budget.
The Bharatiya Janata Party suffered stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states, partial poll results showed Tuesday, forcing the party to rely on allies to form the government after a bitter and divisive election that was projected as a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity.
BIf you know this BJP, it will now go forward to Jharkhand and Maharashtra as if June 2024 never happened, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Singh targeted the Congress using a 'snakes and ladders' analogy, saying the party will fall to zero from 99 after being bitten by a snake -- referring to the grand old party winning 99 seats in the Lok Sabha polls.
'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.'
The TMC also announced it would hold talks with other regional parties in their bid to take on the BJP in the crucial 2024 elections but at the same time denied that it was planning a third front, separate from the Congress-led front.
The grand old party faces the onerous task of rebuilding its moribund organisation, which is struggling to overcome a leadership crisis and regain credibility with the voters.
Among the bigwigs are Union ministers Amit Shah (Gandhinagar), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).
Out of the sitting MPs with serious criminal cases against them, nine face murder cases. The analysis revealed that five of these MPs belong to the BJP.
'Undeniably, Modi's position has stabilised and he has staged a comeback of sorts from the weeks after the Lok Sabha results.' 'Coalition partners are likely to be more tolerant of Modi... The forthcoming elections in Delhi and Bihar will determine whether this continues or not.' 'To win Delhi and Bihar, Modi will have to work in conjunction with the RSS.' 'However, because of the 'truce' that has been worked out within the Sangh Parivar, Modi will have to be more consultative than he has been in the past ten years,' reveals Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Both the BJP and Congress understand that coalitions and alliances are not just about numbers, but have symbolic value.
In Bihar, there is all kind of trouble for the party after its All India Congress Committee general secretary in charge of Bihar, Jagdish Tytler, and Pradesh Congress Committee President Anil Sharma released a list of 569-member state committee. What is shocking is that the caste of each member has been written next to his or her names.
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
The plenary session in Chhattisgarh's Nava Raipur will start from February 24 and is expected to be attended by around 15,000 delegates.
With 'go solo' being the mantra for Congress after its success in Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh, the party is now set to dump Lalu Prasad's Rashtriya Janata Dal in the Bihar assembly elections scheduled later this year. An indication to this effect came when All Indian Congress Committee in-charge of the state Jagdish Tytler and Pradesh Congress Committee president Anil Sharma recently met party president Sonia Gandhi.
A voter turnout of 10.82 per cent was recorded till 9 am on Saturday in 58 constituencies in six states and two Union territories where polling is underway in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
10 vacancies in the Upper House after Rajya Sabha members were elected to the Lok Sabha.
The JD-U, may be the BJP's partner for now. But it is a party at all only because of Nitish Kumar. The day Nitish Kumar exits, the JD-U will split into hundreds of pieces. Obviously, Prashant Kishor is setting himself up as the vessel that will collect all the pieces and put them together in some sort of political instrument, explains Aditi Phadnis.
The Supreme Court has sought details from the Allahabad High Court regarding controversial statements made by Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav at a VHP function. The development comes amid calls for action against the judge for his remarks, which have been labeled as hate speech by some. The judge's statements were made at a VHP function on December 8, where he spoke about the Uniform Civil Code and the law working according to the majority. Several individuals and organizations, including lawyer Prashant Bhushan and CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat, have called for an inquiry into the judge's conduct and for his removal from judicial duties.
The new chief minister, if from the Congress, will have little or no time for political administration, to ensure that he does not lose the voter's goodwill even before the Lok Sabha polls. He can count only on one thing. That the BJP may not want to upset him too early lest an early failure should become an added problem for the party in all the polls to follow, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Sixty-eight Rajya Sabha members, including nine Union ministers, are completing their tenure this year, triggering a race of sorts among leaders across political parties to eye a six-year term in the Upper House of Parliament.
What some of our leaders were up to this week.
The electoral exercise, the first since the Lok Sabha elections, will decide the fate of many veterans and some debutantes including Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife Kamlesh Thakur.
Raut said such friendly fights should happen on all 48 seats in Maharashtra as well as in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
The BJP holds 28 of the 59 Rajya Sabha seats that will soon face election.
In the battle for 2024, the place is hogging the limelight, primarily because of Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, who according to some opinion polls, may turn out to be the dark horse when votes are counted on June 4.
All 13 candidates in the fray in Indore against Lalwani, who won by a potentially record margin votes, lost their security deposit, indicating they were clearly rejected by the voters. If a candidate gets fewer than one-sixth of the total valid votes cast in a constituency, his/her security deposit is seized by the EC.
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.
Gandhi, who is seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala, in a video appeal said this election is to save democracy and the Constitution.
The political uproar continues in Bihar, as Chief Minister Nitish Kumar alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party wanted to make R C P Singh the Eknath Shinde of Bihar and isolate the Janata Dal-United party.
The assembly bypolls in Bihar and Maharashtra, scheduled for November 3, are set to be the first electoral test of the popularity of the respective state governments after a change in the political alignment.
The EC said polling percentage in the Anantnag-Rajouri seat in Jammu and Kashmir is the highest in 40 years.
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