It will be clear whether the voters preferred the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao-led regime for a third term or the "six guarantees" by the Congress worked any miracles or the BJP's BC chief minister 'mantra' wooed the electors or if there will be a fractured verdict, by tomorrow evening.
The respective Dussehra rallies of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and and Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray were once again about whose version of Hindutva is genuine and who is the true inheritor of party patriarch Bala Thackeray's legacy.
Right to Information activist Anjali Bhardwaj said the VVPAT system should be re-calibrated to be fully voter-verifiable.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Election Commission to introduce in a phased manner the paper trail in EVMs in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections saying "it is an indispensable requirement of free, fair and transparent" polls which will restore confidence of the voters.
Polling in Madhya Pradesh was marred by complaints of faulty EVMs and voter verifiable paper audit trail machines.
'The BJP is racing against its opponents by putting a chain on their legs.'
Former Union law and commerce minister Subramaniam Swamy has written a letter to the Election Commission, demanding a paper trail to 'substantiate and verify the election results' obtained from Electronic Voting Machines.In his letter, Swamy has argued that it is possible to manipulate the EVMs, by planting a software programme that could produce an election result in favour of a particular candidate.
The Election Commission of India has set up more than 200 polling stations within housing societies in the urban areas of Uttar Pradesh to increase the voter turnout in the politically crucial state.
The party would consider aligning with any party after assessing the post-poll situation, she said.
The villagers stopped a section officer's vehicle which was carrying reserved EVMs for the assembly elections and damaged two control and ballot units each and three VVPATs (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail), the EC said in a statement.
Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Friday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of targetting her for raising a voice against alleged electronic voting machines tampering and said she was not averse to shaking hands with other parties in her fight against the saffron party on the issue.
'If we get 399 seats and you say we have not crossed 400, then it is your wisdom. But the '400 paar' slogan is based on calculation and considered opinion'
The EC said polling percentage in the Anantnag-Rajouri seat in Jammu and Kashmir is the highest in 40 years.
To pass that time, some candidates preferred to stay with the party workers, others decided to take some rest after the heat and dust of electioneering, while some others took timeout to meet parents before the results were announced.
An approximate voter turnout of 59.06 per cent was recorded in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Saturday in 58 constituencies across six states and two Union territories with the polling percentage in the Jangal Mahal region of West Bengal touching 78.19.
In a collaborative study, a team of Indian and international experts recently revealed that the electronic voting machines used in Indian elections are vulnerable to fraud. Excerpts from their report.
A voter turnout of over 40 per cent was recorded till 1 pm on Monday in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections in 96 constituencies spread over 10 states and Union Territories amid incidents of violence in Andhra Pradesh and reports of poll boycott in some villages of Uttar Pradesh.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded candidates in all 200 constituencies while the Congress has fielded 199 candidates.
The video in this regard was shared by Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Akhilesh Yadav and senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on their social media accounts.
The party raised concern over the security of Electronic Voting Machines inside strong rooms and their handling during the counting process in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, and the alleged deletion of voters in Uttar Pradesh.
Alex Halderman and Rop Gonggrijp, two of the three scientists who had exposed the flaws in the Election Commission's EVMs, flew in to New Delhi around 2 am on Monday and were detained immediately. After a harrowing wait for hours, the duo was let off in the evening.
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'.
The state police in poll-bound Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh will be kept away from guarding the strong rooms where the Electronic Voting Machines will be stored after polling.
The Election Commission refuses to tell how many people have voted in each phase.
In a first, BJP crossed the 10 per cent vote share-mark in Tamil Nadu and has so far registered a share of 10.21 per cent, though it could not emerge in lead positions anywhere.
The Election Commission is working on a new design of Electronic Voting Machines, which will accommodate more than the present maximum limit of 64 candidates.
The BJP and Shiv Sena, which have claimed that EVMs can be tampered with, will make a presentation before the Election Commission to prove their contention.
Dharashiv, earlier Osmanabad, is among the eight districts that comprise the state's Marathwada region, where activist Manoj Jarange has led an agitation demanding reservation for Marathas in education and government jobs.
'The aged with retina and finger print issues are not getting access to pension and ration.' 'If all becomes digital -- what'll happen to the poor?'
She also said that the BJP will not be able to maintain law and order in Uttar Pradesh.
The AAP will approach EC to put up banners outside polling booths.
'The Congress wants to distort the very fabric of Indian society because they are obsessed with vote bank politics.'
All 13 candidates in the fray in Indore against Lalwani, who won by a potentially record margin votes, lost their security deposit, indicating they were clearly rejected by the voters. If a candidate gets fewer than one-sixth of the total valid votes cast in a constituency, his/her security deposit is seized by the EC.
The top court issued notice to the Election Commission on the PIL filed by author, activist and motivational speaker Shiv Khera.
The arrest of Hariprasad has come as a major set back for all those activists who are on a mission to prove that the Electronic Voting Machine can be tampered with. Hari Prasad, the technical coordinator of VeTA (Citizens for Verifiability, Transparency and Accountability in Elections), was arrested from Hyderabad on Saturday in connection with the theft of an EVM from Mumbai.
The government must develop a legally tenable mechanism in order to restore the cycle of simultaneous elections.
A Pune-based engineer and activist has been arrested by the city police in connection with a Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) theft case. Mukund Lagoo, a civil engineer and a human rights activist was arrested on Tuesday after two days of questioning.
In the tribal village of Edamalakkudy, nestled deep within this hill district's lush forests, lives 92-year-old Sivalingam. Despite his age and being bedridden, Sivalingam's determination to vote remains strong.
The Aam Aadmi Party's Maharashtra unit strongly objected to "faulty" electronic voting machine in the Bhandara-Gondia constituency on Tuesday and decided to appeal to the CEC to postpone polls until machines are tested and certified to be functioning properly.
"The journey from Hayuliang to Malogam takes a full day on foot," Joint Chief Electoral Officer Liken Koyu told PTI.
