The Election Commission has sent a notice to Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal for violating the Model Code of Conduct during a press conference where he launched an attack on the BJP and its Delhi unit chief, Satish Upadhyay.
The plea had also sought to bar the BJP and its leaders from using the "Jai Shri Ram" slogan during the poll campaign in the state.
The poll panel said it did not receive specific complaints or concrete material from political parties and candidates about alleged tampering of EVMs during recently held election process.
The updated election ads policy for India will require advertisers to provide a 'pre-certificate' issued by the EC or anyone authorised by the poll panel, for each ad. Further, Google will verify the identity of advertisers before their election ads run on its platforms, reports Peerzada Abrar.
Congress MP Sushmita Dev said that speeches given by Modi and Shah are also punishable under section 153A of the Indian Penal Code as they "blatantly promote disharmony and feelings of enmity on the grounds of religion and such acts are also likely to prejudice the maintenance of public harmony and tranquility between religious communities".
The West Bengal government is issuing certificates of COVID-19 vaccination to the people in the age group of 18-44 sponsored by the state with the photograph of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
"For the Lok Sabha elections, we are making meticulous planning on all fronts including electronic voting machines (EVMs) and the voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT)," he said.
Responding to a complaint by Right to Information activist Saket Gokhale, the commission said it has found no violation of the provisions of the model code in the issue.
The hot money may be on the Aam Aadmi Party winning the Delhi assembly elections, but the Bharatiya Janata Party is not giving up the battle without a fight.
The poll panel is likely to write to President Ram Nath Kovind to bring the matter to his cognisance.
In Kolkata, senior Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala accused the prime minister of "putting pressure" on the EC to delay its press conference. He also said the CEC's explanation is "preposterous" and wondered whether Bharatiya Janata Party is the "super EC".
Banerjee scored a personal point with a massive victory in the bypoll with a record margin of 58,835 votes.
Shuja had on Monday claimed at an event in London that the EVMs can be tampered with and that the 2014 Lok Sabha elections were rigged.
On a day Ashok Lavasa's decision to recuse from model code of conduct complaints became public, the EC said the 'full commission' would meet on May 21 to discuss the issue of dissent and 'related matters'.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, a high-profile name from Jharkhand, went to the polling station to cast his franchise in the 3rd of the five-phased Assembly elections.
The total income of seven political parties from unknown sources was Rs 2,512.98 crore in 2018-19.
The SC directed the centre to place before it details regarding 1,581 cases involving MPs and MLAs, as declared by politicians at the time of filing their nominations during the 2014 general elections.
The poll watchdog also said that as per laws related to elections, after the declaration of results, the only option available to verify the data of votes cast was filing an election petition before the high court concerned.
Whatever happens with this election, there is going to have to be a serious rethink of how the ECI, and elections, are run in India. There can't even be the whiff of impropriety. In a country that believes in democracy, EVM rigging isn't stealing an election, it's stealing the soul of a nation, says Cleo Paskal.
Israel-based ECI telecom is mulling opening a subsidiary in India for research and development, to cash in on the talent pool and low cost of operations.
People's mandate is sacrosanct and has to be above any iota of reasonable doubt, Pranab said.
The Twitter officials were told that there should not be any "international interference" in the Lok Sabha polls.
The panchayat polls will be seen as a kind of verdict from the hinterland for Yogi Adityanath ahead of the crucial 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections.
The EC is learnt to have invoked the 'party in power' clause of the poll code in the case as it could be averred that party in power' is using government transporter for election publicity.
A bench of Justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari issued notice to the Centre, West Bengal and Election Commission of India on the plea, which also sought to central and state governments to award compensation to the victims and their family members after ascertaining the nature of loss sustained by them in post-poll violence in the state.
Nearly 57 per cent of total income of five national parties during financial year 2013-14 was from sale of coupons (smaller donations), a leading election watchdog NGO has said.
G V L Rao, part of Save India Democracy which exposed the frauds being committed through EVMs, told rediff.com that the bigger issue was that the government dragged its feet on sanctioning funds for the introduction of VVPAT despite the Supreme Court passing its order a year ago.
The removal of over 54,000 accounts was the largest such removal yet.
The Election Commission's decision is "unfortunate", highly arbitrary, motivated and "biased" and was taken at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party, she said in the letter.
'By manipulating India's electoral laws, the aim of the Modi government is to weaken democracy to such an extent that it ultimately crumbles.'
The DGP was on the "hit list" of the YSR Congress for some time now, as they were perceived to be close to the previous Telugu Desam Party government.
To counter the doubts over the machine's reliability, the Election Commission has come out with a list of FAQs to put across its views in public domain.
The Congress, a responsible political party, has never cast unwarranted aspersions on the actions of Constitutional bodies, Surjewala said.
'Indian cricketers in IPL should be allowed to vote wherever they are'
Stating that at least 16 people of different political parties have lost their lives in the post-poll violence in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party, saying unable to digest defeat in the state elections they were sending central ministers to incite unrest in Kolkata.
Ruling National Conference has filed a complaint before the Election Commission against Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh for allegedly violating Model Code of Conduct.
I had said that eloquence of silence is always difficult but far more desirable to see the election process through instead of creating ill-timed controversies.
Addressing her first press conference after the election results were declared, she accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of polarising the people on religious lines to garner votes in West Bengal.
'Modi is still immensely popular and, therefore, he can sustain any number of policy failures.' 'Modi himself has worn multiple faces so it would be naive to think that the Modi of 2021 will be the same Modi that will be campaigning for re-election in 2024.'
NSUI demanded re-election with paper ballot while the EC said the EVMs used were not provided by it.
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