Mann said there was no use in finding fault with EVMs and the party should introspect on the reasons behind its defeat.
Nearly 68 per cent of the 3.62 crore-strong electorate today turned out to vote in Rajasthan Assembly election that witnessed stray incidents of caste violence and malfunctioning of Electronic Voting Machines.
A total of 833 candidates from 61 political parties, including Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel of the Bharatiya Janata Party, are contesting the polls in these assembly segments spread across Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Gandhinagar and other districts.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
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.
A group of five people, including candidates but excluding security personnel, is allowed to take part in door-to-door campaigning.
The nodal officer for EVMs in Varanasi, a returning officer (RO) in Sonbhadra district and an additional election officer in Bareilly district have been pulled out from election duties, a day ahead of the counting of votes in UP.
Most exit polls have predicted a clear victory for the BJP both in Maharashtra and in Haryana, even though they have differed in their projection on the number of seats.
Chief electoral officers will brief Lyngdoh on February 4.
The date of the proposed challenge, an official said, would be decided after the all-party meeting.
The Congress in Kerala on Friday approached the Election Commission of India (ECI) against the decision of Doordarshan to telecast the controversial movie The Kerala Story, saying it was a 'tacit effort' to divide society on religious grounds to further the electoral prospects of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
By-elections to Lok Sabha and assembly seats in the states of Assam, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Tamil and West Bengal passed off peacefully on Saturday amidst tight security.
Maharashtra Speaker Nana Patole on Tuesday said he has asked the state legislature to frame a law to give voters the option of using ballot papers besides electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the local governing bodies' and state assembly polls.
Ninety nine per cent votes were cast at a polling station in Karong constituency while 95 per cent votes were cast at the Wunghon government primary school polling station in Ukhrul constituency in Ukhrul district.
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.
The main fight is between Congress candidate V S Sivakumar, fielded by the ruling United Democratic Front, and the Communist Party of India nominee Pannian Ravindran of the Opposition Left Democratic Front.
Complaints of electronic voting machine malfunctioning poured in from several booths on Tuesday during the third and largest phase of Lok Sabha polls which saw voters turning out in large numbers to cast their vote in 116 seats, including all constituencies of Gujarat and Kerala.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which has ruled Gujarat for 27 years, is trying to retain power in the state for the seventh term in a row.
Central Para Military Forces personnel were guarding the EVMs, stored in 41 counting centres and securitymen in adequate strength would be deployed inside and outside the counting centres to ensure its conduct in an orderly and peaceful manner.
The state police in poll-bound Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh will be kept away from guarding the strong rooms where the Electronic Voting Machines will be stored after polling.
Amid stray violence, Rajasthan on Sunday witnessed a record turnout of 74.38 per cent in the assembly election, which will decide the fate of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and his bete noire Bharatiya Janata Party's Vasundhra Raje among others.
Trump, who has launched a slew of lawsuits in key states, but has not provided any evidence to back his claims of fraud, announced on Twitter on Tuesday that he has fired Christopher Krebs, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) at the Department of Homeland Security.
'Commentators have said that dealing with allies as equals will make Modi more sensitive.' 'Remember that the people Modi is dealing with are equally autocratic in their own lairs.' 'Further, Modi always has handy the threat of dissolving Parliament and calling for fresh polls.' 'Most of his own party, and certainly his allies and opponents having blown their budgets of efforts and resources in the just concluded elections, have no stomach for this.' 'They are all greatly looking forward to the loaves and fishes of office on offer.' 'That gives Modi an unbeatable advantage in any push-comes-to-shove situation,' explains Shreekant Sambrani.
'The Congress is trying to reinvent itself -- the caste census demand, OBC emphasis, the anti-corporate thrust, especially on Adani etc -- all this is not standard Congress strategy.'
He also said the Bihar chief electoral officer has already responded to everything. The EC held four press conferences on counting day on November 10 to respond to various aspects of the process, Arora pointed out.
The names of candidates in Braille script on electronic voting machines to help visually challenged voters and deployment of helicopters to ferry people from remote areas to the polling booths are some of the special features of the upcoming elections in Andhra Pradesh this year. Chief Electoral Officer I V Subba Rao told reporters on Wednesday that every EVM will have a strip in Braille with the names of the candidates and other details.
For the first time in his political career, he failed to carry his party to even a working majority -- and again, for the first time in his career, he finds himself in a situation where he cannot rule by dictatorial fiat, points out Prem Panicker.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party of attempting to "steal" votes and said exit polls were meant to create a perception that the saffron party will emerge victorious in the Uttar Pradesh election.
'We cannot override the CJI's order... This is nonsense'
The highest polling of 72.35 per cent was recorded in Sirmour district followed by 68.48 per cent in Solan and 67.67 per cent in Una and 67.5 per cent in Lahaul and Spiti. The high-altitude district of Lahaul and Spiti had recorded 21.95 per cent, the lowest, till 1 pm, but polling was brisk as the sun came out.
His campaign has now established a "Election Defense Fund" to raise funds to fight the expensive legal battle in US courts that might end up in the US Supreme Court.
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.
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.
The results of this election, largely touted as a three-cornered contest among a spirited AAP, a confident BJP and a hopeful Congress, may have ramifications beyond the national capital.
With assembly elections in Bihar likely to be held later this year, the Election Commission is dispatching four special teams of 'auditors' to the state on Monday for weeding out duplicate entries from electoral rolls.
Counting of votes will take place on May 15.
Jammu and Kashmir has been without an assembly since November 2018 when the then legislative assembly was dissolved by then Governor Satya Pal Malik after the People's Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government fell apart earlier that year.
The five-state assembly elections are seen as a now-or-never, no-holds battle for the Congress, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
To clear doubts over EVMs, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi will soon call all-party meet.
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