Memon said that the opposition should introspect why Modi keeps getting such a "positive mandate" and dismissed suggestions of manipulation of EVMs, an oft-repeated complaint of the Congress and other political parties.
Strong rooms spread across the city storing the electronic voting machines (EVMs) are being heavily guarded, with a 'three-layer security ring'. Tight security arrangements have also been put in place at various centres across the national capital.
Over 83 per cent of the more than 13 lakh electorate cast their vote on Monday in the single-day Nagaland state election which passed off by and large peacefully, Chief Electoral Officer V Shashank Shekhar said.
The commission said polling was held at 15,940 polling stations spread across 44 assembly constituencies in this phase of polls.
The Lt Governor conveyed to the Delhi government that the rules will have to be amended for shunning the EVMs and it was not possible to make the changes as little over a month is left for the polls.
Pakistan's election commission has expressed its inability to hold general elections within three months due to legal, constitutional and logistical challenges, according to a media report on Tuesday.
Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of hatching a conspiracy to assassinate Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, fearing poll defeats in Gujarat and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), and alleged Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari's involvement in it.
"Polling was held peacefully at the 11,697 polling booths across the state with 65.1 per cent of the electorate casting their votes till the close of polls," Chief Electoral Officer Saujanya who does not use a surname said.
Polling started at 7 am and closed at 6 pm and there were reports of technical snags in EVMs at some places, but voting was peaceful, Election Commission officials said.
Governor La Ganesan and Chief Minister N Biren Singh were among the early voters in their respective constituencies of Sagolband and Heingang.
At many places, where the voters had entered booths before 6 pm and were standing in queues, they were allowed to cast their votes.
EC officials said the counting of votes for the Lok Sabha elections will begin at 8 am on Thursday and results are expected only by late evening.
Nearly 4,800 elected MPs and MLAs will vote on Monday to elect the 15th President of India, with National Democratic Alliance candidate Droupadi Murmu having a clear edge over Opposition's Yashwant Sinha as over 60 per cent votes are expected to be cast in her favour.
Banerjee lost the Nandigram assembly elections to BJP candidate and her former lieutenant Suvendu Adhikari by 1,956 votes, the Election Commission said.
How many parties contested the first Lok Sabha election?
A total of 69.96 per cent of 28.13 lakh voters exercised their franchise in the Tripura assembly elections till 3 pm on Thursday, amid sporadic incidents of violence, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Gitte Kirankumar Dinakarrao said.
It was a high-stakes three-cornered fight between the BJP, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party.
Voting will be held on Thursday for the first phase of Gujarat Assembly elections in 89 seats spread across 19 districts in Saurashtra-Kutch and southern parts of the state where 788 candidates are in the fray.
Raising slogans, members of the BRS, Left parties and some members of the Congress walked out of Lok Sabha in protest as the prime minister was speaking.
Gujarat will go to polls in two phases on December 1 and 5 with the counting of votes on December 8 along with that of Himachal Pradesh, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar announced.
Sporadic incidents of violence were reported from various places that went to polls on Saturday during the first phase of the West Bengal assembly election, even as the overall poll situation was largely peaceful with 79.79 per cent turnout recorded till the end of voting, an official said.
The announcement came days after it issued a formal direction that VVPAT will be used at polling stations in all future elections where polls are held using EVMs.
The commission issued letter of intent to ECIL and BEL -- both PSUs -- on Friday, two days after the Union Cabinet cleared its proposal to buy 16,15000 voter verifiable paper audit trail units at an estimated cost of Rs 3,173.47 crore.
AI implementation enabler Staqu will deploy its proprietary video analytics system JARVIS to count votes directly from the camera by monitoring the electronic voting machines screens at the counting centre.
As round one of the seven-phase Lok Sabha election began in 91 constituencies across the length and breadth of India, from the hills of Kashmir to the islands of Andaman and Nicobar, reports of unrest and irregularities cast shadows over the world's biggest poll process.
Modi targeted Congress's president-elect Rahul Gandhi, saying he was born with a "golden spoon" and has not seen poverty.
If you are a budding developer and interested in Web3, chances are that you will be headed to one of India's largest-ever meetings of Web3 developers, being held by Polygon, a Web3 platform. The company's ongoing "Web3: Made in India Tour" is expected to see close to 4,000 developers coming together at the inaugural Polygon Connect event in Bengaluru on December 1. The event highlights the growing dominance of Web3 developers from India, as well as the sector's rising interest to investors, who continue to invest in startups despite a funds crunch.
Guidelines have been issued by the Commission for safe conduct of the electoral exercise in the midst of the raging COVID-19 pandemic. These guidelines include lowering the maximum number of voters for a polling booth from 1,600 to 1,000, staggering the polling hours and extending postal ballot facility to those above 80.
Campaigning for the fifth phase ended on Friday evening, and all necessary arrangements have been completed, state Chief Election Officer Ajay Kumar Shukla said in Lucknow on Saturday.
The EC received complaints from five places that EVMs were connecting to external devices via bluetooth, but after inquiry, it was found that there was 'no substance' in the complaints.
Kejriwal said the AAP is not like the Congress and cannot be intimidated by the ruling party.
The BJP secured a runaway victory in the Municipal Board elections in Assam, pocketing 72 civic bodies out of 80. The Congress, the principal opposition party of the state, could not even win a single civic body.
Political parties were bracing for the assembly election results on Thursday in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and politically volatile Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, sending out feelers for possible post-poll tie-ups.
The voter turnout in DUSU polls on Thursday was recorded at 39.90 per cent, over four percentage points down from the last year.
The chief minister has lost her cool twice in the last few weeks over people chanting 'Jai Sri Ram' at some places in the state while her motorcade was passing through.
Total 171 votes were cast in a booth in Assam's Dima Hasao district, even though 90 people were eligible to exercise their franchise, officials said on Monday, revealing a massive irregularity.
Bihar Chief Electoral Officer H R Srinivasa said the Election Commission has established a three-tier security system for strong rooms (housing the electronic voting machines) and the counting centres. The inner core is being guarded by the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), then there is the Bihar Military Police (BMP) and then the district police, he told reporters.
Firing a fresh salvo at the Bharatiya Janata Party which had accused the Shiv Sena of paying only lip service to the cause of Hindutva, the latter's member of Parliament Sanjay Raut on Tuesday claimed that the Sena was the first party in the country to contest an election on the Hindutva plank.
Rediff.com's Bikash Mohapatra, who is in the US to cover the presidential election, finds out that the American voter does not really trust the electronic voting machine.
The final phase saw voting in all 13 seats of Punjab and an equal number of seats in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight seats each in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, four in Himachal Pradesh, three in Jharkhand and the lone seat Chandigarh.
