Eleven states and Union territories -- Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand -- had a voter turnout lower than the national average of 67.40 percent in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
He could have blazed a trail that few Indian judges had. It was a missed opportunity of a lifetime, notes Ramesh Menon.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah held discussions for seat sharing in Maharashtra for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections with coalition partners Shiv Sena chief Eknath Shinde and Nationalist Congress Party president Ajit Pawar.
On the basis of her committee's report, the UCC in Uttarakhand established mandatory registration for marriages and live-in relationships, banned polygamy, and provided equal inheritance rights for women.
Three persons, including two supporters of the Indian Secular Front (ISF), were killed and several policemen injured in West Bengal's South 24 Parganas district as a clash broke out outside a centre where counting of votes for rural polls was going on, police said on Wednesday.
The 52-year-old, who joins her mother Sonia and brother Rahul as an MP in what is a rare instance of three members of a family together in Parliament, would visit Parliament as a teenager to listen to her father Rajiv Gandhi speak as prime minister.
The Wednesday's preliminary meeting focused on various thematic issues including assured minimum facilities at polling stations, ease of registration for voters, electoral roll, timely resolution of grievances, arrangements of electronic voting and paper trail machines, postal ballot facility for senior citizens who are 80 and above, and people with disabilities.
The Samajwadi Party and Congress have announced that they will contest together under the INDIA bloc.
The State Bank of India, which unsuccessfully sought extension of time till June 30 to disclose the details of electoral bonds, on Monday faced searching questions from the Supreme Court which wanted to know about the steps taken to comply with the directions it had issued while scrapping the controversial scheme of anonymous political funding on February 15.
Canada's Liberal Party has revoked Indian-origin MP Chandra Arya's bid to run for the party leadership and his nomination in his own Ottawa Nepean constituency over alleged ties to the Indian government. Citing a source with top-secret clearance, the Globe and Mail daily reported that Arya, who visited India last August and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had not informed the government of that trip even though bilateral relations are in a deep freeze. The Liberals have never revealed why they barred the three-term Liberal MP from the party's recent leadership race or from running again in Nepean constituency. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service had briefed the government about Arya's "alleged close ties to the government of India, including its High Commission in Ottawa". Arya has rejected the allegations and believes he was removed because of his stance against the Sikh Khalistani movement in Canada.
The elections will begin on April 19 followed by subsequent phases on April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1.
A high-level committee to explore the feasibility of conducting simultaneous elections, headed by former president Ram Nath Kovind, held its first meeting in New Delhi on Saturday and decided to invite political parties and the Law Commission to seek their views on holding synchronised polls in the country, a statement said.
The share of such voters has shrunk to 1.9 per cent of registered voters in 2024 from 2.7 per cent in 2014.
The Congress leader said he believes that democracy is derailed and "we are becoming too authoritarian". "It's all about one-man show," he said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance on Saturday retained power in Maharashtra, pocketing a whopping 230 of the 288 assembly seats, as the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi's dream of wresting power fizzled, with the opposition combine managing to garner just 50 seats.
The government has to specify what it intends to do with caste census data. It will be closely tracked if the government would simultaneously move towards removing the present 50% bar on reservations using means which are permitted in law. If this is not done, the entire exercise will become meaningless and could boomerang on the BJP, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Modi said laws which divide the country on communal lines and become a reason for inequality have no place in a modern society.
There are 1,349 candidates in the fray and over 1.45 crore electors are eligible to exercise their franchise in the elections to the 250 wards of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), the results of which may have ramifications beyond the national capital.
He succeeded Fakruddin Ali Ahmed after his death in 1977.
Unlike the past when G V G Krishnamurthy, J M Lyngdoh, R Peri Sastry, H S Brahma, and V S Sampath held positions in the ECI representing all corners of India, this ECI will be North India-centric.
Please promise, especially those millions who trust you with their hard-earned money, never to let your voting preferences determine your actions on the markets. The most appalling and scary phenomenon was fund houses and brokerages going out on election yatras and writing copious reports promising more than 300 for the BJP. That was your wish as voters. Your investors are paying for it now, points out Shekhar Gupta.
The Election Commission on Tuesday deliberated on holding the assembly polls in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir before or after Dussera.
The country now has six national parties - Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party, Communist Party of India-Marxist, NPP and AAP.
Justice Sanjiv Khanna 'belongs to that school of legal luminaries who give the highest primacy to facts.'
'Not even a single rupee from the electoral bonds should be allowed to be used in the election.' 'If it is used in the election, it will taint India's electoral process itself.'
The Election Commission is considering advancing the polls by a month to avoid the May heat, reports R Rajagopalan.
No limit exists on the number of electoral bonds that a person (including corporate entities) can purchase.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which pulled off a hat-trick of wins in Haryana by bucking anti-incumbency, managed to make significant inroads into the Dalit seats and Jat strongholds.
'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.
For renomination to the Rajya Sabha, Nadda will have to look for a seat outside his home state of Himachal Pradesh as the Congress is in power there.
The BJP, which contested more seats this time than in 2019 but is likely to fall short of the magic figure of 272, garnered 36.91 per cent of the total votes polled, a drop of around 0.39 percentage points as of 6.15 pm.
Months after winning the Lok Sabha polls from Sirsa, the former Union minister and the Congress' prominent Dalit face also indicated her desire to contest the upcoming assembly elections and said she wishes to work in the state but the high command will take a final call on the matter.
Living separately and refusing to co-exist in future, many members of both Kukis and Meitis communities ask - why elections at this time and what difference will they make?
A delegation of Congress leaders met the Election Commission and handed over complaints against the prime minister, alleging that he has trampled upon and violated the model code and directions of the poll body.
The meeting, which began around 10:30 pm on Thursday, lasted for more than four hours and was held at the party's headquarters in New Delhi.
Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Friday said though there is no pre-poll adjustment with the Tipra Motha, there can be local-level understanding with the tribal party, which has emerged as the third pole in the upcoming Tripura elections.
Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar MLA Rohit Pawar's mother Sunanda has emphasised the need for party factions led by veteran politician Sharad Pawar and Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar to come together as voices for unity emerged from both rival camps.
The party was floated exactly two years after Kishor had embarked on a more than 3,000-km-long 'padayatra' of the state.
'Gyanendra back on the throne would be bad news for the Nepali people. He may not have learnt from his experience, but we have.'
The only visible hint of the impending election is the hoardings put up by local election authorities, urging citizens to exercise their franchise.
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