7,06,252 people or 1.7 per cent of the voters opted for the option whereby they preferred not to vote for any candidate while exercising their democratic right.
With former prime minister Imran Khan in jail, Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is tipped to emerge as the single largest party in the elections.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked stakeholders like the Centre, Niti Aayog, Finance Commission and the Reserve Bank of India, to brainstorm on the 'serious' issue of freebies announced during elections and put forth 'constructive suggestions' to tackle it, saying no political party will oppose such handouts or like to debate it in Parliament.
Given the politics behind it all, one possibility is for binding the governor to act according to the decisions of the state government and clarifying his position vis a vis bills and resolutions passed by the state assembly -- or, re-enacted if returned, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The high court's observation came while dismissing an appeal by Samata Party challenging a single judge's order which had rejected its plea against allotment of 'flaming torch' election symbol to the Uddhav Thackeray faction of the Shiv Sena.
The top court, however, granted liberty to all candidates to approach the West Bengal State Election Commission for appropriate relief.
About 82 per cent of the total income from unknown sources declared by national political parties in 2022-23 came from electoral bonds, according to a poll rights body.
An unofficial and brutal justice system exists parallel to the official one, and it executes many times more of the accused than the official one executes convicts, points out Aakar Patel.
The office of Neelam Gorhe, deputy chairperson of the Maharashtra Legislative Council, has sought more details with regard to a letter by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde seeking the appointment of Viplove Bajoria as Shiv Sena whip in the Upper House, effectively giving a temporary breather to the Thackeray camp.
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain a Public Interest Litigation, questioning the functioning of Electronic Voting Machines and seeking a direction to the Election Commission to withhold using them till the machines are made tamper proof.
Creating a positive reform that does away with an official who constitutes a flawed aspect of Indian democracy will allow the BJP to rightfully claim this as one of its positive legacies, suggests Karan P Shah.
In an emphatic victory for the Modi government, the Supreme Court on Monday unanimously upheld its decision to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution that bestowed special status upon the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, ordered restoration of statehood "at the earliest" and set a September 30, 2024, deadline for holding the assembly elections.
Arun Jaitley, general secretary of Bhartiya Janata party and noted Supreme court advocate, said that the arguments given by union law minister Hansraj Bhardwaj and several other constitutional experts were wrong in their assumption that since the government was the appointing authority, hence they too have the right to decide about the removal of a constitutional authority.
A bench of Justices SK Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia said the Centre cannot preclude reservation from being extended to women in civic bodies by saying it doesn't apply to tribal areas.
The Dussehra rally is the major event in the annual calendar of Shiv Sena since the days of the late Bal Thackeray.
'Can we force somebody to contest and fight an election when they don't want to contest an election?'
A plea has been moved in the Supreme Court by two Kashmir residents challenging the Centre's decision to constitute the delimitation commission for redrawing the assembly and Lok Sabha constituencies in Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
Besides the various political parties, the election commission is also getting into poll mode.
The ruling Eknath Shinde camp in Maharashtra told the Supreme Court on Tuesday that the rival side led by Uddhav Thackeray wanted the speaker of the state assembly to "usurp" the powers of the Election Commission when the ultimate test of majority in a democracy -- the floor test -- was ordered by the governor during the 2022 political crisis.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday termed the cancellation of over 25,000 school jobs as 'gross injustice' and alleged that it was a ploy by the Bharatiya Janata Party to stop these job losers from being deployed in poll duty.
Singh has questioned the reliability of the EVMs on more than one occasion following the Congress' defeat in the recent assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
The National Judicial Commission Bill, 2022, was introduced after the majority of voice votes were in its favour.
As some BJP pollsters concede, the Modi leadership's sweeping success in elections 2019, especially across central India, owed not to Hindutva ideology, but to welfare schemes, all of them borrowed from Tamil Nadu, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
A bench comprising justices A M Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheswari and C T Ravikumar was told by senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, who appeared in the matter on behalf of the state government, that a plea seeking a recall of the order was filed electronically on Monday.
'What should surprise BJP supporters is Modi's call for 'stability' at the manifesto launch, a theme that he and his team members had not touched ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 and 2019.' 'The last time the party called for 'stability at the Centre' was in 1998 and 1999,' recalls N Sathiya Moorthy.
'If he has not achieved 'Congress mukt Bharat' even now, the question of his creating a 'DMK mukt Tamil Nadu' does not arise,' points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
A larger bench of the apex court -- comprising Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial, Justice Ijazul Ahsan, Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel, Justice Munib Akhtar and Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail -- took up the matter after Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri rejected the move to dislodge the prime minister by declaring the no-trust motion unmaintainable due to its link with a so-called foreign conspiracy.
The Election Commission on Monday agreed before the Supreme Court to amend its blanket order for seizing cash amount above Rs 2.5 lakh in transit during the Gujarat assembly elections.
What stood out in his 15-year journey as a member of the political executive at the Centre was his glowing record as India's most successful and effective finance minister. Both as prime minister and finance minister, he understood the importance of gradualism, except when the economy or the polity was in a crisis.
Restoration of Article 370 and Jammu and Kashmir's statehood as well as implementation of the autonomy resolution passed by the erstwhile assembly in 2000 are among the National Conference's 12 guarantees announced in its manifesto for the upcoming polls.
Amid a debate on the freebies, the Election Commission on Tuesday proposed amending the model code to ask political parties to provide authentic information to voters on the financial viability of their poll promises.
The top court reserved its verdict on a batch of pleas seeking a collegium-like system for the appointment of ECs and the Chief Election Commissioner and asked the parties to file written submission in five days.
Uddhav Thackeray and his followers have the option to stop riding a tiger and commence work around a more meaningful and enduring political ideology. It is an option Eknath Shinde's side may not have, supported as they were by the BJP, to maintain continuity of the old Sena, argues Shyam G Menon.
On the announcement of his gurantees, Kejriwal said, "I have not discussed with my INDIA bloc partners about this. I will press upon my INDIA bloc partners to fulfill these guarantees."
Senior NCP leader and Maharashtra minister Chhagan Bhujbal on Wednesday said the Supreme Court order on the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) quota was a setback to the state government and it should do everything it can to save the community's reservation.
The Supreme Court on Monday said it would hear on January 17 the matters in which it had directed the state election commissions of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh to re-notify the seats reserved for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the local bodies in these states under the general category.
"It was unanimously decided by the leaders that the correct forum for deciding the issue is either the Election Commission or the courts."
Will BJP campaigners start using the term 'Ram Rajya' to refer to the nation under Modi's rule, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
A bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud observed that candidates may contest elections from different seats due to a variety of reasons and it is Parliament's will as to whether the course of democracy would be furthered by granting such a choice.
'To summarise, PM Modi's failures in the last nine years can be categorised under 'durniti' (bad policies), 'anyay' (injustice) and - perhaps most importantly - 'badniyat' (ill intention)'
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