More than 10,000 security personnel, returning officers, and other support staff will oversee the counting of votes for the Himachal Pradesh assembly polls on Thursday.
In future if the party wins, people would say 'INDIA has won,' but if the party loses, then people would say 'INDIA has lost'
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Friday said his party would pull off a spectacular victory in the state assembly elections, but evaded a direct reply to a question whether he would be the chief minister for the fifth time, as he just said 'Bharatiya Janata Party Zindabad'.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Thursday alleged blatant misuse of constitutional authorities and public agencies after reports claimed that the Election Commission recommended his disqualification as an MLA in the mining lease case.
In its complaint against Shah, the Congress told the EC that the home minister claimed in a speech in Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon on October 16 that "...Bhupesh Baghel's government, for appeasement politics and vote bank politics, lynched Chhattisgarh's son Bhuneshwar Sahoo and got him killed..."
Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav on Monday alleged that the police and administration are preventing people from casting votes in Mainpuri parliamentary and Rampur Assembly constituency in the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh.
The results for bypolls to seven assembly seats in six states will be declared on Friday in what is being seen as a major test for the opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance ahead of the polls in five states later this year and Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
The seven seats -- Bageshwar in Uttarakhand, Ghosi in Uttar Pradesh, Puthuppally in Kerala, Dhupguri in West Bengal, Dumri in Jharkhand, and Boxanagar and Dhanpur in Tripura -- went to poll on September 5.
The crucial, neck-to-neck contest was necessitated as the Bharatiya Janata Party fielded three candidates while Shiv Sena put up two and Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party one each.
A bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar asked the Election Commission of India to take an appropriate decision with regard to political rallies as per law and keeping in mind COVID-19 guidelines.
With the election campaign in Karnataka witnessing a bitter war of words between the BJP and the Congress, both the parties rushed to the Election Commission, seeking ban on electioneering by top leaders of the other side.
The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC), which contested the Goa Assembly elections for the first time this year, failed to make a mark in the coastal state.
The YSRC will now have to seek the Election Commission of India's nod to let Jagan be the party chief for life.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has found the report submitted by the West Bengal government on the alleged attack on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram on March 10 as 'sketchy' and asked Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay to elaborate it, a poll official said.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has decided to deploy 125 companies of central forces in West Bengal by February 25 for the ensuing assembly elections, a senior official said on Friday.
The last assembly elections were held in Jammu and Kashmir in 2014, five years before the erstwhile state was reorganised into two Union territories on August 5, 2019.
The counting of votes for the Rajya Sabha elections was delayed on Friday in Maharashtra and Haryana over alleged violation of rules, officials said.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) might punish police personnel in charge of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's security for a lapse leading to her injury during campaigning in Nandigram in Purba Medinipur district, a senior election official said.
A statement from Raj Bhavan said that Koshyari requested the ECI to declare elections to the nine vacant seats of the Maharashtra Legislative Council 'at the earliest'. The state cabinet had on April 9 recommended Thackeray's nomination as one of the governor nominees in the Legislative Council.
The BJP, the petitioner in the case, has sought Soren's disqualification under Section 9A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 -- which deals with disqualification for government contracts -- for allegedly extending a mining lease to himself.
The EC had on Saturday issued a notice to the Karnataka Congress over its "corruption rate card" advertisements published in newspapers in the run-up to the May 10 state polls and sought "empirical evidence" to prove its allegations by Sunday evening.
The Election Commission on Friday issue a 'certificate of election' to NDA nominee Droupadi Murmu who has emerged victorious in the presidential poll.
Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday expressed confidence that his faction will emerge victorious in the legal tussle with the rebel group led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
Given the vital role played by cyberspace in new-age electioneering, the UP police have constituted a digital monitoring cell to curb objectionable and defamatory social media posts on the eve of the elections.
The Delhi high court on Friday asked the Election Commission to give complete details of registration of the Aam Aadmi Party with it.
Banerjee, who was speaking to reporters at West Bengal's state secretariat, said that her party's name will remain the All India Trinamool Congress.
Digital canvassing is expected to benefit from political money looking for alternative blow horns.
The BJP IT cell has held meetings right down to booth levels and these volunteers have been working for the past six months already.
The first bench refused to restrain the media, both electronic and print, from publishing the oral observations of the judges relating the role of EC in holding elections to four states and the Union Territory of Puducherry in the country during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The top court said the secretary may collate necessary information by corresponding directly with the secretary of the home department of respective states and UTs within three weeks and compile it state-wise.
In an unprecedented order to check criminalisation of politics, the Supreme Court on Tuesday held nine political parties including the ruling BJP and JD (U) in Bihar guilty of contempt and fined eight of them for violating its February, 2020 order on publication of criminal antecedents of their candidates for the assembly polls.
'It's not that the Opposition has to search for common ground.' 'The government is handing the common ground to the Opposition.'
'Eknath Shinde and 40 other traitors have become slaves of Delhi (Centre) to finish off the Shiv Sena'
'The Election Commission is in the process of updating electoral rolls.' 'Once that is done, the dates for elections will be announced by the ECI at an appropriate time.' 'What can be more democratic than this?'
The bench said the petition has relied on a March 2 verdict of the apex court which had ruled that the appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner and ECs will be done by the President on the recommendation of a committee, comprising the prime minister, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha and the CJI, to maintain the "purity of election".
After barring Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma from campaigning in the assembly polls for 48 hours, the Election Commission has also transferred his brother and Goalpara Superintendent of Police Sushanta Biswa Sarma from the district.
Jammu and Kashmir has been without an assembly since November 2018 when the then legislative assembly was dissolved by then Governor Satya Pal Malik after the People's Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government fell apart earlier that year.
The petitioner, Avinash Thakur, had sought a direction to the Chief Election Commissioner to postpone the polls due to the COVID-19 pandemic on the ground that the Representation of the People Act provides for the deferment of polls in extraordinary situations.
Noting that COVID safety norms were being flouted in West Bengal during campaigning, the Election Commission banned roadshows and vehicle rallies in the state with immediate effect and said no public meeting having more than 500 people would be allowed.
A bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana said it would take a call by Monday on referring the matters related to the recent Maharashtra political crisis to a Constitution Bench.
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