'The margin of victory or loss would make both camps rethink their strategies for the 2024 assembly election in Maharashtra.'
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".
Former Chief Election Commissioner T S Krishnamurthy has pitched for single-phase elections and substantially curtailing public campaigning time in future polls.
'...the President is pleased to accept the resignation tendered by Shri Ashok Lavasa, Election Commissioner with effect from the 31st August, 2020,' the notification said.
"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.
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 is likely to write to President Ram Nath Kovind to bring the matter to his cognisance.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Banerjee scored a personal point with a massive victory in the bypoll with a record margin of 58,835 votes.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
Ruling National Conference has filed a complaint before the Election Commission against Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh for allegedly violating Model Code of Conduct.
The Congress, a responsible political party, has never cast unwarranted aspersions on the actions of Constitutional bodies, Surjewala said.
'By manipulating India's electoral laws, the aim of the Modi government is to weaken democracy to such an extent that it ultimately crumbles.'
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.
'Indian cricketers in IPL should be allowed to vote wherever they are'
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.
NSUI demanded re-election with paper ballot while the EC said the EVMs used were not provided by it.
The EC currently follows a system of random counting of VVPAT slips in one polling booth per assembly segment of a Parliamentary or assembly constituency.
The Gujarat Parivartan Party, led by Bharatiya Janata Party rebel and former chief minister Keshubhai Patel, will contest the forthcoming assembly elections on the symbol of a cricket bat. In a major relief to the new entrant in the election fray, the Election Commission of India on Wednesday rejected BJP's complaint for disallowing GPP from using this symbol.
