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.
A voter turnout of 60.19 per cent was recorded till 5 pm in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections in 93 constituencies spread over 11 states and Union Territories on Tuesday with sporadic incidents of violence in West Bengal.
The LJP received 5.68 per cent of votes while contesting on nearly 140 seats in the elections to the 243-seat Bihar assembly.
BJP-led NDA gave five seats to the Chirag Paswan-led LJP (Ram Vilas).
'Nitish Kumar may take a decision to dump the BJP alliance by November.'
Exit polls on Saturday predicted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will retain power for a third straight term, with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance expected to win a big majority in the Lok Sabha polls.
The BJP and JDU leaders claimed that Prasad insulted women in the state with his comment.
Uddhav Thackeray, his son and Maharashtra tourism minister Aaditya Thackeray figured in the list of campaigners.
"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.
Misa Bharti's election office in a khatal is meant to symbolise an emotional connect with her parents Lalu Yadav and Rabri Devi's caste, the Yadavs, who are considered traditional RJD voters.
On Tuesday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah exuded confidence that the BJP would win the 2024 Lok Sabha elections by an even bigger majority.
The NDA has retained Bihar with a wafer-thin majority of 125 seats in the 243-member assembly, paving the way for a fourth term for CM Nitish Kumar.
A voter turnout of over 40 per cent was recorded till 1 pm on Monday in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections in 96 constituencies spread over 10 states and Union Territories amid incidents of violence in Andhra Pradesh and reports of poll boycott in some villages of Uttar Pradesh.
Voters of Balgudar village in Bihar's Lakhisarai district on Wednesday boycotted the assembly elections in protest against the construction of a museum on a playground in their village.
The order that was passed less than a week ahead of the first phase of polls scheduled on October 10 throws a spanner in the election process.
Prashant Kishor declares the 2025 Bihar assembly election will be a contest between his Jan Suraaj Party and the BJP-led NDA.
Thackeray had on Monday claimed his bag was inspected by the election authorities when he arrived in Maharashtra's Yavatmal to campaign for the November 20 assembly elections.
Filing of nominations begins on Wednesday and ends on October 26.
Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Friday left for Delhi to placate Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose party stormed out of the nascent anti-Bharatiya Janata Party grand alliance for Bihar assembly elections on Thursday.
The Janata Dal (United) has demanded action against BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla for his comments targeting an AAP leader, which the regional party said has caused deep displeasure among people from Purvanchal. The JD(U) said Poonawalla's remarks, made during a TV debate, were offensive and demanded action from the BJP leadership. The incident comes ahead of the Delhi Assembly elections, where the AAP is facing a tough challenge from the BJP.
Lalu's son and heir apparent Tejashwi Yadav, however, sought to downplay the remarks made by his father, in an interview to a local news channel, claiming that the RJD supremo had merely tried to satisfy the curiosity of the prying media.
The decision taken about Kharge at the INDIA bloc meeting earlier this month had shocked the JD-U, which believed that its president and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar would be named as the convenor without being saddled with any chairperson, its leaders had then said.
EC in its fresh advisory said despite the direction certain advertisements of "offending nature" have been brought to its notice.
The new TDP government will have to mop up over Rs 10,000 crore to fulfill the financial requirements for July, a retired senior bureaucrat said.
'The IOA has no jurisdiction over the conduct of elections for NSFs, yet this order has been issued in a manner that clearly questions its intent.'
'Women' as a political constituency appears to be an idea that has come of age. It is changing India in ways that we only dimly understand, asserts Aditi Phadnis.
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.
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.
Bihar assembly Speaker Awadh Bihari Chaudhary on Sunday called on Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad Yadav, at a time when the state was witnessing a big political churn.
'Kerala will lose 6 seats, Tamil Nadu 9 seats, Telangana and Karnataka 2 seats each, Andhra Pradesh 5 seats.'
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Thursday blamed the Congress' preoccupation with assembly polls in five states for the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA)'s inability to build on the momentum it had gained in recent months.
Jan Suraaj founder Prashant Kishor has begun a fast unto death in Patna, demanding the cancellation of a recent examination held by the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC). Kishor's hunger strike comes after he gave a 48-hour ultimatum to the Nitish Kumar government to act on the demand, raised by aggrieved candidates who allege the exam was rigged. The administration has declared the hunger strike illegal as it is not the designated site for protests.
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.
This will be the first time the BJP has got more seats than Chief Minister Nitish Kumar-led JD-U in Bihar, underscoring the change in their equations after they joined hands a few months back.
EC officials said over 1 crore votes were counted till around 1.30 pm out of nearly 4.16 crore votes polled in the three-phase elections.
The Mahagathbandhan's seat-sharing announcement comes a day after the filing of nomination papers for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls was over.
The formation of a new government in Maharashtra has been delayed due to a disagreement between the Shiv Sena and BJP over who should be the next chief minister. Shiv Sena insists on Eknath Shinde continuing as CM while the BJP favors Devendra Fadnavis. The delay comes despite the BJP-led coalition winning a landslide victory in the recent assembly elections. Sources suggest that the coalition has not reached a consensus on the CM, with various leaders from both parties voicing their opinions on the matter.
Campaigning ended on Wednesday evening for 102 Lok Sabha seats across 21 states and Union territories which will go to polls in the first phase on April 19 with top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) making a last-gasp effort to woo voters.
In 2019, an all-party meeting was held in Delhi and it was attended by 19 political parties to discuss critical reforms in governance. One of the subjects of the discussions was simultaneous elections
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