Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda on Thursday launched the party's campaign theme song for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Congress in Kerala on Thursday rejected the organisational support announced by the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), the political arm of the now-banned Popular Front of India (PFI), in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections but welcomed individual voters to support the United Democratic Front (UDF).
'The Abdullah family is the problem and facilitator of the instability that we are seeing in Kashmir.'
'We want to ensure that no government in J&K will be formed without our support.'
The Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, where Rahul Gandhi won for the second time in a row, comprises three assembly constituencies each in the tribal district of Wayanad and the Muslim-dominated Malappuram, as well as one in Kozhikode district where Christians hold a significant vote base.
BJP Delhi president Manoj Tiwari said the 'AAP is loosing elections' that is why it is raising such issues.
Instead of harvesting the wrath against the BJP and using it to their advantage by opting for a collective form of leadership, the Congress decided once again to bestow their trust in the Hooda family who were given a free hand in the distribution of tickets. This turned out to be the biggest blunder and this faulty selection was the single over riding factor in the Congress defeat, explains Rashme Sehgal.
The NGO challenges the validity of a provision of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023.
The CEC said 7.2 crore single-use gloves for voters to press electronic voting machine buttons, more than seven lakh units of hand sanitiser, about 46 lakh masks, about six lakh personal protection equipment (PPE) kits, 7.6 lakh units of face shields have been arranged.
'Whether she is in power or not, she always makes it a point to visit us. This is her best quality as a leader.'
In a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former prime minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday accused him of lowering the dignity of public discourse and the gravity of the office of the PM by giving "hateful speeches" during the poll campaign.
In a race to woo voters with freebies ahead of the upcoming state assembly elections, Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday promised Rs 2,000 per month for women homemakers if his party returns to power.
According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
If Rashid cannot be the king, he could be the kingmaker after October 8 when the results to the J&K assembly are declared.
BJP candidate Rajeev Chandrasekhar's wife and son who keep themselves far from the political limelight reveal what it is like to campaign for the first time.
Barring 2004 and 2009 when Navjot Singh Sidhu won the Amritsar seat as a BJP MP and 1998 when Daya Singh Sodhi from BJP was elected as the MP, it has essentially a Congress bastion.
'Election funding needs a little more transparency.'
'Is the Agniveer scheme or their post-retirement re-employment in paramilitary forces or in the state governments the BJP's answer to the crying need on the job front?' 'Or, even Finance Minister Sitharaman's one-year internship scheme in the public and private sector, is it a permanent solution, either?', asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
'People in politics have lost the value of being connected to their own people.' 'Now it's all about vote share, vote bank, how many parties can you break and make them join you.'
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.
Granting interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal would not amount to grant of privilege or special status to politicians, the Supreme Court on Friday said, while observing that the Aam Aadmi Party leader has no criminal antecedents and is not a threat to the society.
Both Chandrababu Naidu and Pawan Kalyan assured voters that they would bring jobs and industrial development to the state. Their alliance batted for a welfare-plus-development model.
"The emails were sent from 'mail.ru' domain, in which a man impersonating himself as Tauheed Liaquat sent them to all the schools with the aim of spreading fear among voters and Indian citizens," the Ahmedabad crime branch said in a press statement.
'Commentators have said that dealing with allies as equals will make Modi more sensitive.' 'Remember that the people Modi is dealing with are equally autocratic in their own lairs.' 'Further, Modi always has handy the threat of dissolving Parliament and calling for fresh polls.' 'Most of his own party, and certainly his allies and opponents having blown their budgets of efforts and resources in the just concluded elections, have no stomach for this.' 'They are all greatly looking forward to the loaves and fishes of office on offer.' 'That gives Modi an unbeatable advantage in any push-comes-to-shove situation,' explains Shreekant Sambrani.
Chowdhury termed Banerjee as an "opportunist politician" who altered her stance after realising the changing political landscape.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
On the Opposition's poll promise of statehood restoration, Shah said, "I want to ask Farooq Abdullah and Rahul Gandhi, who is going to restore the statehood. You cannot give it back. Why are you misleading the public?"
Tharoor argued that the proposed bill represents a "grave chapter in the history of the Indian republic, seeking to ratify an ordinance that in many ways is an assault on our democratic heritage and the spirit of federalism."
If Tamil Nadu voters preferred the DMK combine, it owed to the Modi-Annamalai combo's ideological battle which often crossed the line of political decency and also challenged 'Tamil pride', argues N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
In 2019, actor turned-politician Sumalatha Ambareesh, an independent backed by the BJP, won by defeating then Kumaraswamy's son and joint candidate of the then ruling Congress-JD-S alliance Nikhil by 1,25,876 votes.
Amid criticism that the Congress had given a walkover to Irani in Amethi, sources said, the party in its wisdom believed that Rae Bareli's historical, emotional and electoral importance for the Gandhi family was higher than that of Amethi.
This will be the first civic election after the fresh delimitation exercise, and the much-awaited poll will be held in the gap between the two phases of the Gujarat assembly elections, which will take place on December 1 and 5.
When it comes to the Congress and Wayanad, the only way the scepticism in the minds of some in Kerala may be addressed is by the Gandhi family proving that they are more than a passing caravan in town, reports Shyam G Menon.
Gopi said that it is a matter of pride for him to be in the Council of Ministers of the Modi government and to represent the people of Kerala.
A multi-functional facility, equipped with 36 specially designed vaults for storage of Electronic Voting Machines and VVPATs, was on Friday inaugurated by Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra in Delhi, officials said.
The Exit polls for the Lok Sabha 2024 elections were way off the mark this time with the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc whose rout they had predicted touching nearly 230 seats on the counting day with good showing in Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh as per the current trends.
The newly introduced 'None of the Above' option was barely opted by voters in Delhi Assembly polls, for which the results were declared on Sunday.
Facing opposition fire for exit polls allegedly being used for stock market manipulation, Axis My India's chief Pradeep Gupta has said he is open to facing all kinds of investigations and it would help do business in a much better way if the government frames specific regulations for pollsters.
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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