There are 218,442 voters over 100 years on the electoral rolls.
Holding simultaneous elections to Lok Sabha and state assemblies would need at least five constitutional amendments and a large number of additional EVMs and paper-trail machines costing "thousands of crores of rupees", but will yield a huge long-term saving to the public exchequer, officials said on Friday.
Rajasthan is all set to vote on Saturday to elect members of a new assembly with the Bharatiya Janata Party aiming to unseat the ruling Congress, which is fighting hard to change the trend of alternate governments in the state.
Lakhs of voters will have to bear the searing heat when they step out to exercise their franchise in the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections on Friday.
The counting of votes for the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh polls along with six assembly and one Lok Sabha by-elections will commence at 8 am on Thursday with prohibitory orders in place around counting halls to ensure peace and tranquillity.
The Zoram People's Movement (ZPM) stormed to power in Mizoram by dethroning the Mizo National Front (MNF) bagging 27 seats in the 40-member House on Monday.
Whether the age-old cry of kendrer banchana will be able to drown out pangs of Sandeshkhali, the EVM will tell.
Over 19,000 polling officials have been deployed at 3,419 booths set up for the elections to the 59 assembly seats, Chief Electoral Officer F R Kharkongor said.
'Sonia did not visit this place once since she won. Who's to say they won't lose this one, too?'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday vowed to thwart alleged attempts to rob Dalits and backward classes of reservations by the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) which he accused of 'enslavement' and performing 'mujra' for Muslim vote bank.
It's just not a date. It's just not about selecting a candidate. It's not about helping some candidate win. It's about expressing emotion, after ten years, that could reach out in India and beyond it, notes Sheela Bhatt.
Modi underlined his commitment to taking strict action against the corrupt amid criticism by opposition parties that probe agencies were used by his government to target their leaders.
With voter-verified paper audit trail being used on a large-scale for the first time in the country in the Mizoram Assembly polls, the Elections Commission is leaving no stone unturned to make it easily accessible to voters.
'The West has always opposed a strong nationalist leader in India and Narendra Modi is no exception.' 'The West prefers weak leaders who are amenable to Western pressure and Mr Modi's independent stance is not to the liking of the West,' asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The editorial in Saamana said the "Wagner group" has shown dictatorship can be challenged.
Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Delhi has been sent as a special officer to oversee the counting process in Meerut and Bihar's CEO to Varanasi.
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
With Lok Sabha polls next year and assembly elections round the corner in some key states, the government cleared a proposal on Thursday to procure 1.80 lakh Electronic Voting Machines.
Three security personnel suffered injuries in the fierce gun-battle and a large quantity of weapons was also recovered from the spot, the state police said.
The curious onlookers that greet the candidates are, however, unaware about the importance of history. They are just there to catch a glimpse of 'Rani Ma' Amrita Roy or Mahua Moitra.
Twelve constituencies of Bastar division were among 20 assembly segments in Chhattisgarh that went to the polls in the first phase on November 7. A high voter turnout of 78 per cent was recorded in these 20 seats.
24 hours was all it took for the Congress to overturn its decision to boycott the TV debates on the exit poll results. Sudhir Bisht offers an explanation.
Asked how many seats INDIA bloc will get, Gandhi said, "Have you heard Sidhu Moose Wala's song '295'? So 295 (seats)."
'For voters, PM Narendra Modi's name and developmental works in Rajkot are enough reasons to support the BJP'
The counting of votes in three out of four states on Sunday showed that less than 1 percent of the voters exercised the 'none of the above' option in the just-concluded assembly polls, according to the election commission.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com does a deep dive into four elections when Narendra Modi resorted to anti-Muslim fervour and points out that Hindu-Muslim politics does not necessarily mean victory for the BJP.
Holding simultaneous polls for the Lok Sabha and all assemblies would need any no-confidence motion to be coupled with a 'confidence motion' by a leader proposed as next prime minister or chief minister, while any mid-term election can be conducted only for remainder of the term, the Election Commission had said earlier.
Voters include 8.4 crore men, 8.23 crore women and 11,371 from third gender. There are as many as 35.67 lakh first time voters, besides 3.51 crore young voters in the age group of 20-29 years.
'I don't know whether on voting day there will be intimidation from some militant groups to vote for a particular person and then force them from voting for another in the stronghold of the candidate which does not favour them, or, force them not to come out for voting.' 'Anything is possible.'
Khera told reporters in Hyderabad that the views of the newly-elected MLAs have been elicited and the central leadership is seized of the matter.
It will be in Modi's interest to reinvent his party, read the writing on the wall that voters wrote, and move ahead. He has little choice now. The country is watching, asserts Ramesh Menon.
Among the keenly watched contests are those involving former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (Kannauj, UP) and Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai, Bihar), Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur, Bihar) and Raosaheb Danve (Jalna, Maharashtra).
Helicopters are anticipated to be more in demand compared to fixed-wing aircraft as choppers will help in providing accessibility to rural and remote areas in a shorter time.
Leaders of 22 opposition parties met the Election Commission and demanded verification of VVPAT slips of randomly-selected polling stations before the counting of the votes.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Thursday said he will attend the inauguration of the Ram temple at Ayodhya in January if he is invited to the programme.
Counting of votes will be held on Sunday in assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Telangana in what is seen as a semi-final contest ahead of the general elections in less than six months.
The former Congress president alleged that PM Modi had a "monopoly over corruption".
A high-level committee on Thursday recommended simultaneous elections for Lok Sabha and state assemblies as the first step followed by synchronised local body polls within 100 days.
Right to apprenticeship, legal guarantee for MSP, passing a constitutional amendment to raise the 50 per cent cap on reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs, a nation-wide caste census and scrapping of Agnipath scheme are among the promises made by the Congress in its Lok Sabha polls manifesto released on Friday.
'The right to vote is the supreme right of democracy which is being executed through EVMs. No nationally or internally recognized institutions or governments have certified the EVMs as a cent per cent accurate. Despite this fact, by conducting polling using the machines in India, which is the biggest democracy in the world, the constitutional right of my vote is being violated. There is no guarantee whether my vote is cast in favour of whom I pressed the button through the EVM machine,' he said.
