The move of the Arvind Kejriwal-led party has further reduced the possibility of the INDIA bloc alliance working in the MP elections.
'We called him Sher-e-Kashmir but we realised he was no lion but a pussycat who surrendered.'
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 manner in which assembly seats were distirbuted among Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh so far, has ensured that residents of the Valley rule the state forever, says Sanjeev Nayyar.
Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP accused National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah of leaving them "no option".
A number of high-profile electoral battles, starring veterans and debutants, formidable opponents and unlikely contestants, feature in Tuesday's outcome.
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 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.
While the going for Dushyant Singh in Jhalawar is not tough, winning Jalore is a tough battle for Vaibhav Gehlot.
On his part, BJP Lok Sabha MP Narayan Rane, himself no stranger to controversies, got into damage control mode and sought to calm frayed nerves, saying he has chided his son over the remarks.
As the final five phases of polls draw closer, rift among Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partners, Congress-Left combine and the Trinamool Congress, which are fighting separately has intensified, triggering a fierce contest across half of the remaining 36 constituencies in West Bengal driven by local issues such as Sandeshkhali and the SSC scam.
BIf you know this BJP, it will now go forward to Jharkhand and Maharashtra as if June 2024 never happened, notes Shekhar Gupta.
While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.
'My mother feels it will be tough and emotional for her to enter an assembly which has essentially been reduced to a municipality now.' 'My opinion is that even if it is a municipality one cannot cede that space to the BJP.'
Even as the dust settles on one election, glory in Thiruvananthapuram has come with a new question on the horizon: Who will be UDF's candidate in the next Lok Sabha election given Shashi Tharoor has said 2024 would be his last? It isn't a vacancy that can be easily filled, points out Shyam G Menon.
Rai alleged that MLAs and councillors of the Aam Aadmi Party were stopped from meeting the family members of the Delhi chief minister, who was arrested by the ED in an excise policy-linked money-laundering case on Thursday.
Asaduddin Owaisi, who was once the leader of a little-known outfit confined to the old city of Hyderabad, has emerged as a powerful voice of Muslims in the country in recent years.
The ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led alliance won all five seats, performing particularly well in Singhbhum, Rajmahal, and Dumka.
Congress, the main Opposition party in the BJP-ruled state, had left the Khajuraho seat for SP as per the seat-sharing arrangement within the INDIA bloc.
Aditi Phadnis picks five key seats in the three states where assembly elections are being held today.
Another meeting convened by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge at his residence in New Delhi on Wednesday with the floor leaders of the INDIA constituents in Parliament will, however, go ahead according to its schedule to formulate the opposition strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
'I want to ask the Congress only one question: What is more important than election management in politics?'
For the last four years since abrogation of Article 370, Kashmir-based political parties have been struggling to forge an alternate narrative to the one forcibly snatched from them. The BJP is bound to go hammer and tongs at them now that their armoury is reinforced with the Supreme Court judgment, notes Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the veteran commentator on Kashmir affairs.
The MNS joining the BJP-led alliance in Maharashtra could help it with a 'Thackeray versus Thackeray' narrative, fielding Raj Thackeray, an articulate speaker, to take on his cousin Uddhav Thackeray.
A strategist and a quintessential political leader with grassroots connect, Rajnath Singh is credited with expanding the Bharatiya Janata Party's organisational network in the Hindi heartland state of Uttar Pradesh in the 1990s and the subsequent decades.
'Besides Ayodhya, the BJP lost in nine other constituencies with a Ramayana imprint; it tasted success only in Thrissur.' 'In Rameswaram, K Navaskani of the Indian Union Muslim League won with a 44% voteshare in a 84% Hindu constituency.' 'In the 21 seats in the Ayodhya and Varanasi regions, both crucial to the Hindutva project, the BJP won just 7.' 'It won just 3 out of 12 seats around Modi's constituency,' points out Krishna Prasad.
Modi also said the way the Indian elections are being conducted could be a learning process for other democracies.
'We are not secessionists, we want to coexist with our countrymen but not on the terms that will strip us off our dignity and a right to peaceful existence.'
'The people preferred Uddhav Thackeray and Sharad Pawar...'
Constituencies that are going to the polls in the first phase, slated for April 19, have just 19 days for campaigning. Contrast that with those going to polls in the 7th phase, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Reacting to the results, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that in the by-elections held on 13 seats in seven states, the people of the country have given their support to the INDIA bloc.
The poll panel said it found Kharge's letter, placed in the public domain in the middle of the ongoing electoral process, 'highly undesirable' and designed to create confusion, misdirection and impediment to the conduct of smooth, free and fair elections.
The notice requested Rashid or a representative of his to appear before the district expenditure monitoring committee within two days to address the discrepancy and ensure timely submission of the expenditure report to the Election Commission of India.
'Afzal Guru became a victim of Pakistan's conspiracy. He was used as a means, just like all other innocent Kashmiris.'
He said Priyanka could have been a wonderful candidate in Varanasi as well, especially looking at how good the Congress candidate did against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The Congress and the Left parties have not only extended support to the Samajwadi Party candidate but are also campaigning for him, in accordance with the spirit of the new opposition togetherness ahead of next year's general election.
The BJP's vote share in Cuttack went up from 9 per cent in 2009 to 38 per cent in 2019.
There were certainly qualities adhering to the Tata Group, which emanated from the persona of Ratan Tata. Most notable of these would be the low profile he maintained, which sharply contrasted the in-your-face celebrity status, celebration of wealth and pursuit of importance many of liberalised India's rich, love, notes Shyam G Menon.
'Rather than criticising the kind of candidates fielded by political parties from our living rooms, NOTA in a sense implores the electorate to say this by turning up in person at a polling booth to ensure their protest is registered.'
'These include economic prosperity, a promising future for youth, empowerment for women, a thriving society, robust healthcare, quality education, elevated living standards, agricultural prosperity, and robust social security coupled with effective governance.'
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