Celebrities and politicians made a beeline for polling stations in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, as both the states go to the polls on Monday.
Polling in Vellore was scheduled on April 18.
The BJP will be the obvious gainer while the DMK will lose a major chunk of its vote bank.
The BJP has been pushing the two AIADMK groups to merge and then get the Sasikala clan out of the party and government.
The counting will begin at 8 am, and as per the Election Commission's COVID-19 guidelines, a candidate, his poll agent and counting agent can remain present in the counting hall, officials said, adding various measures have been taken to ensure social distancing and avoid crowding.
Polling will be held in all 13 seats in 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.
The cricketer-turned-politician, who will be making his electoral debut from East Delhi, has shown an income of nearly Rs 12.40 crore in the income tax returns filed for 2017-18.
'The voters of Maharashtra have taught a lesson to Modi's arrogance.'
In a first such action in India's electoral history, the Election Commission had Wednesday ordered campaigning in the nine West Bengal constituencies to end at 10 pm on Thursday, instead of 6 pm on Friday, in the wake of violence between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress in Kolkata during Amit Shah's roadshow.
In the Modi government, he was the mentor -- he groomed half a dozen of those who became ministers. Some remembered, others did not -- Jaitley seemed to care little. Aditi Phadnis reports.
India needs to shed its policy of lethargy and inhibitions to engage the Taliban with an intent to maintain its influence in Afghanistan. This would not just put a spanner in Pakistani designs, but also incentivise the Taliban not to be the puppets of GHQ, Rawalpindi, asserts Colonel Nikhil Apte (retd), who served on the Af-Pak desk at the Military Operations Directorate.
Gopalkrishna Gandhi could only manage 244 votes.
The US president has slammed the op-ed titled "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration', calling it 'gutless'.
The results will be declared on July 20 in New Delhi.
BJP strategists need to remember even at this late hour that 'negativism' sells when you are in the Opposition as the Indian voter has mostly voted anti-incumbency, and not when you are in power. You still needed to highlight your achievements and promises, and let the voter draw his conclusions, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The ongoing civil war in the White House between representatives of the Alt Right, such as Steve Bannon, and the pragmatists has to end for Trump to complete a four-year term, says Hardeep S Puri.
NSUI demanded re-election with paper ballot while the EC said the EVMs used were not provided by it.
'The anti-India biases of the Western elite can be attributed to the unease these privileged nations feel at the rise of Asian nations like India and China.' 'But what ought to shock all right-thinking Indians is that many of our own countrymen/women have joined this chorus,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Here's a list of the full first-time ministers in the second term of the Narendra Modi government.
Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton registers her first 'win' by four votes to two against Trump.
'Political elites need to feel that these are our children dying, that this is a crisis for us, a tragedy for our community, we must take immediate action to save the lives of our people.'
The economics behind the surprising popularity of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.
'Rather than 'consolidate' the Hindu majority votes, as the BJP-RSS combine has been known and wont to try, this time round PM Modi has himself taken the party to the next step, by seeking to create a new divide within the majority community, a la V P Singh in his time.'
The EC also ordered the removal of Principal Secretary (Home) Atri Bhattacharya and Additional Director General, CID, Rajiv Kumar from their postings in West Bengal.
Rarely have we seen such intoxication over power, which ignores the cries of those dying, notes Jyoti Punwani.
Singhdeo was the main architect of the Congress party's poll manifesto, which he said was made after feedback from about 80,000 people from across the state.
The man who could well have been a high-level corporate may have to content himself being deputy chief minister. But other challenges await.
The 41-year-old 'young gun' travelled the length and breadth of the state to strengthen the party at the grassroots level and ensure its comeback.
Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu are centred on chief ministerial candidates of rival parties. When Sasikala cannot contest even a panchayat election for six years after her release, even if she were to have sympathetic backers even among apolitical voters, she does not have any 'transferrable vote-bank' even otherwise for a chief minister candidate of her choice, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Till he took over, political parties ferrying people to the polling stations was considered quite 'normal', and it was during Seshan's stint that it became impossible with the model code being made sacrosanct.
The front-runner of course is party treasurer and long-serving party legislator, S Duraimurugan. A Vanniar by caste from the rival PMK-strong northern belt, Duraimurugan makes up for his weak political grounding through his debating skills in the assembly, and witty repartee, both inside and outside. Apart from caste and regional representation, personal loyalty to the leader would count even more -- but there is no death of loyal and competent candidates in the party for the post, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
LDF-backed candidate has the edge in Ernakulam \n\n\n\n
The 84-year old veteran Congressman, who died from post-COVID complications on Monday, was a Nehru-Gandhi family loyalist.
Khan, who is believed to have the backing of the powerful military, has vowed to make a 'Naya Pakistan' which would be an Islamic welfare state.
'The BJP will get the lion's share of the Opposition vote. I would give the Congress-Left around 15 per cent.'
'A President who is a living embodiment of high principles can tone up the entire national fabric,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
These measures are in addition to other proposals made earlier, including regulation of sale and consumption of liquor, free trips to certain religious places like Sabarimala and distribution of one lakh cows every year.
Kumaraswamy had proved right the adage that politics is the art of the possible, but the science graduate failed to get his chemistry right in keeping the coalition legislators together to ensure his government's longevity.
'You may be an MP or an MLA; when we go to Bengal, we go as cadre.'
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