Taking potshots at the Bharatiya Janata Party, some opposition leaders also wondered if Goel resigned to contest the Lok Sabha polls on its ticket like former Calcutta high court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay.
Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir will be held in three phases from September 18 while Haryana will go to polls in a single phase on October 1, the Election Commission announced on Friday.
The Labor Party leader had travelled to New Delhi as a backpacker in 1991 and led a parliamentary delegation in 2018.
Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Canadian counterpart Anita Anand held their first phone conversation, focusing on strengthening bilateral economic ties and advancing shared priorities. The call comes amid efforts to repair relations between the two countries, which had been strained under the previous Canadian government. Both ministers expressed their commitment to improving ties and working together on areas of mutual interest. The conversation follows a period of tensions stemming from allegations of Indian involvement in the killing of a Sikh activist on Canadian soil.
Sources said the party has also tasked its senior leaders to be observers at the meeting of the Congress Legislature Party in Haryana to elect its new leader.
Voting for the Delhi Assembly elections began on Wednesday, with prominent leaders like President Droupadi Murmu, Union ministers S Jaishankar and Hardeep Singh Puri, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, and Delhi Chief Minister Atishi casting their ballots early in the day. Other notable figures who participated in the electoral process included Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, AAP leader and former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva, Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora, and Delhi Chief Electoral Officer R Alice Vaz. The election is a triangular contest between the ruling AAP, BJP, and Congress, with the AAP aiming for a third consecutive term. Polling is underway at 13,766 stations across Delhi's 70 assembly constituencies to decide the fate of 699 candidates. The results will be announced on February 8.
A heated political battle erupted Tuesday over Arvind Kejriwal's claim of the Haryana government 'poisoning' the Yamuna water, with the Bharatiya Janata Party saying he cannot be forgiven for his 'dangerous statement', while the Aam Aadmi Party chief asserted he won't let the people of Delhi die due to the dirty, poisonous water.
Aam Aadmi Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal went to the Election Commission's office in New Delhi on Friday and furnished his reply to the poll body over its notice to him on his 'poison mixed' in Yamuna water remark.
India and Canada have agreed to restore High Commissioners to each other's capitals at an early date, the first in 'calibrated steps' to restore stability to the 'very important relationship', Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said.
The Himachal Pradesh high court on Wednesday issued notice to Kangana Ranaut, the Bharatiya Janata Party Lok Sabha member from Mandi, on a petition filed by a Kinnaur resident for setting aside her election on the grounds that his nomination papers to contest from the Lok Sabha constituency were allegedly wrongly rejected.
Thackeray had on Monday claimed his bag was inspected by the election authorities when he arrived in Maharashtra's Yavatmal to campaign for the November 20 assembly elections.
In a heinous terror attack, two Indians were killed while one was abducted in the Dosso region of Niger, as noted by the Indian Embassy in Niger.
This is in contrast to a Supreme Court judgment of March which said the panel should comprise of the prime minister, the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India.
Former foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, Kerala BJP leader C Sadanandan Master and Delhi-based historian Meenakshi Jain have been nominated to the Rajya Sabha.
The indication of a timeline comes two days after the Election Commission initiated the revision of electoral rolls in the union territory and prepare the draft rolls by August 31.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said he will be attending the G7 Summit later this month in Canada and that he looked forward to meeting his newly elected Canadian counterpart Mark Carney.
Meanwhile, the Congress' data analytics department chairperson Praveen Chakravarty on Tuesday wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, seeking assembly-wise voter rolls in excel sheet format for the Lok Sabha elections and the assembly polls in Maharashtra.
The Election Commission on Saturday deferred the Haryana assembly poll date to October 5 from October 1, saying the decision was taken keeping in mind a centuries-old festival of the Bishnoi community.
It is learnt that Ottawa is yet to send an invitation to the Indian prime minister for the summit, but Modi, in any way, would have skipped it as such a visit would have required a lot of groundwork considering the current state of ties between the two sides, said the people cited above.
Kumar said the increase was due to Outer Manipur being counted twice, since polls will be held there in two phases.
The elections in the country should be held within the stipulated time of 90 days after the dissolution of the National Assembly.
Congress leaders were seen giving media bytes at various places at the headquarters, arguing that the trends would change by 1 PM but it did not happen.
'If democracy has succeeded, it is largely due to perfect conduct of elections by election commissioners starting from Sukumar Sen to the present election commissioners'
'Unlike in the sporting arena, where sports federations moved from partisan to impartial referees, in Indian democracy's biggest festival, it appears we are moving backward from unbiased and objective to one-sided and partisan,' observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The government is examining the Supreme Court's verdict on the appointment of chief election commissioner (CEC) and election commissioners and it will take "appropriate action" on it, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Thursday.
'VS was a man who devoted every moment of his life, from the beginning till his death at the age of 100, to the struggle against the injustices inflicted upon land, nature and the common man.'
The Congress has said the assembly polls results were "unexpected" and have alleged discrepancies in the EVMs in some seats.
India is the fifth largest economy in the world and it is central to a number of critical global supply chains, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has said, arguing that the leadership of the country must be part of discussions at the upcoming G7 summit.
India has lodged a strong protest with Canada over the "threatening language" and "unacceptable imagery" targeting Indian leadership at a parade held in Toronto. The floats at the parade reportedly featured pro-Khalistan propaganda and imagery attacking Indian leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India conveyed its concerns to the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi, calling on Canadian authorities to act against "anti-India elements" who are spreading hatred and advocating extremism and a separatist agenda. This incident comes days after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's victory in the general election, which was seen as an opportunity to repair India-Canada ties that had been strained under Justin Trudeau's leadership. The two countries have been grappling with strained relations since Trudeau's allegations in September 2023 of the "potential" involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil.
The Congress party in India has alleged "serious and grave inconsistencies" in the data relating to the polling and counting processes for the recently concluded Maharashtra Assembly elections. The party has sought an in-person hearing from the Election Commission to present evidence of alleged discrepancies, including the arbitrary deletion and addition of voters and inexplicable increases in voting percentages. The Congress leaders claim these irregularities benefited the ruling BJP-led alliance, which won a decisive victory in the polls.
Pakistan's election commission has formed a high-level committee to probe the explosive allegations levelled by a senior bureaucrat that widespread rigging aided by the judiciary and the top election body happened against jailed former prime minister Imran Khan's party in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
Several opposition leaders on Sunday criticised the bill on the appointment and service conditions of the chief election commissioner and election commissioners at an all-party meeting as "anti-Constitution" and "anti-democratic", sources said.
The bench refused to entertain the plea filed by NGO Association for Democratic Reforms and dismissed it.
A cross-party delegation led by Congress MP Dr Shashi Tharoor is visiting key American nations to rally global support for India's counter-terror stance under Operation Sindoor, spotlighting regional stability and Pakistan-backed cross-border threats.
The meeting will focus on the current internal security scenario in the state, with a special emphasis on anti-Maoist operations, the release added.
The None of the Above (NOTA) option once again found few takers, with 0.75 per cent of the electorate pressing the button in Maharashtra and 1.32 per cent in Jharkhand. Votes for the assembly elections in these two states were counted on Saturday.
Addressing reporters at his residence soon after the meeting ended, Chowdhury said six names came up before the panel for the selection of the two ECs and the names of Sandhu and Kumar were finalised by a majority of members of the high-powered panel.
Rule of law prevents a government, brought to power by the strength of ballots, from betraying the trust of citizens and "lapsing into a government of caprice, nepotism and finally despotism", the Supreme Court said on Thursday.
Ahmedabad civic authorities launched a massive demolition drive on Tuesday, razing over 2,000 illegally constructed houses and properties in the Chandola Lake area. The operation, which involved around 50 teams equipped with earthmovers and 2,000 police personnel, was carried out days after illegal Bangladeshi immigrants were detained from these settlements. The Gujarat High Court declined to stay the action, observing that the dwellings were situated on the periphery of the water body and therefore subject to demolition under the Land Revenue Code. Authorities also demolished the illegal farmhouse of Lalu Pathan, alleged mastermind behind the encroachments, who is suspected to have helped illegal immigrants obtain rental accommodation and Aadhaar cards.
The Supreme Court on Thursday said it was mystified as to how bureaucrat Arun Goel applied for voluntary retirement on November 18 last year if he was not aware about the proposal to appoint him as an election commissioner.
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