To clear doubts over EVMs, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi will soon call all-party meet.
The five-state assembly elections are seen as a now-or-never, no-holds battle for the Congress, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
They also demanded that if any discrepancy is found during VVPAT verification, 100 per cent counting of the paper slips of VVPATs of all polling stations of that particular assembly segment should be done and compared with the electronic voting machine (EVM) results.
Barring Maharashtra, the poll percentage in rest of the states was in excess of 60 per cent while in Puducherry it was 80.47 per cent.
Dismissing Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal's apprehensions that electronic voting machines could be rigged to favour BJP in the Delhi Assembly polls, the Election Commission on Wednesday said the machines are "non-tamperable".
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.
Voting in the first phase began with reports of multiple faulty electronic voting machines at various booths, prompting Congress leaders to request quick action from the poll body.
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.
The EC currently follows a system of random counting of VVPAT slips in one polling booth per assembly segment of a Parliamentary or assembly constituency.
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 is time the political leaderships in this country arrived at a common ground over issues of foreign and security policy concerns. There has to be a greater communication between the government and the Opposition leaderships for the nation to present a unified face against the rest of the world, advises N Sathiya Moorthy.
CM Yogi Adityanath said the BJP was getting widespread support from the people.
If only the Congress could rebuild on its strengths and develop a modern enough ideology, we could again be moving towards a clearer two-party political landscape, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
Hopes of NRIs to cast votes in the ongoing general elections through Internet were dashed on Friday with the Supreme Court saying that any interim relief at this stage may open a pandora's box.
The voter turnout is 1.28% higher than 65.86% polling in 2013 assembly polls.
The election is likely to witness a three-cornered contest involving the ruling Aam Aadmi Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress.
The Supreme Court has made it clear that random matching of VVPAT slips with EVMs will take place in five polling booths per assembly segment. Accordingly, the exercise will be held in 20,600 of the 10.35 lakh polling stations across the country.
The Left-Congress alliance won 19 out of 19 seats which is significant ahead of the panchayat polls.
The ruling AAP is going into the Delhi election with the hope to repeat its stellar performance of the last assembly polls, while the BJP, which bagged all seven seats here in the Lok Sabha election, will be aiming at expanding its vote share in the
The CEC said when people lose elections, they blame their defeat on EVMs, but when they win they don't do so.
Telangana and Rajasthan are the last states to go to the polls in the current round of assembly elections, which also covered Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram.
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.
'Kejriwal could have easily deputed someone to step in as chief minister, but being the authoritative and self-centered personality that he is, he chose not to do it.' 'If the AAP loses Delhi, where it has a huge majority, the only one to blame would be Kejriwal,' asserts Ramesh Menon.
The work we have done in the south and the northeast over the last 10 years under Prime Minister Modi's leadership, we have started getting results of the same, he said.
Among other things, the code bars the government from announcing policy decisions.
The rural parts of the Varanasi constituency have voted better compared to the urban areas. The Election Commission, which gives out an interim figure of the overall polling statistics, states that polling was anything between 55.34 to 57 per cent in the nigh-profile constituency.
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.
A multi-functional facility, equipped with 36 specially designed vaults for storage of Electronic Voting Machines and VVPATs, was on Friday inaugurated by Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra in Delhi, officials said.
Nagaland Chief Electoral Officer Abhijit Sinha said the violence in Akuluto constituency in Zunheboto district left one dead and two injured.
The sengol must revert to where it belongs -- behind a glass case and not figure in ceremonies concerning India's democracy, argues Shyam G Menon.
Amid speculation over early Lok Sabha polls, the Election Commission is gearing itself up for holding the mammoth exercise along with assembly elections in five states due later this year by ordering additional EVMs.
In Maharashtra, where the 'Mahayuti' alliance of BJP, Shiv Sena and smaller parties is against the 'Maha-agadhi' led by the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party whereas the ruling BJP is locked in a contest with the opposition Congress and the fledgling Jannayak Janata Party for the 90 assembly seats in Haryana.
The by-elections are being held to fill the vacancies caused by the disqualification of 17 rebel Congress and Janata Dal-Secular MLAs, whose rebellion led to the collapse of the H D Kumaraswamy-led coalition government in July and paved the way for the BJP to come to power.
There are 64 vacancies in the legislative assemblies of various states and one in Lok Sabha.
'Hopefully, the new majority government will give the country a fool-proof electoral system,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
In view of the Supreme Court empowering voters with the right to reject, forthcoming Madhya Pradesh assembly elections will see electronic voting machines having a new and separate button for electorate not wishing to vote for any of the candidates in the fray.
The Election Commission has banned use of mobile phones inside polling stations in the ensuing Lok Sabha elections but has allowed use of SMSes by polling staff for sending reports to the election authorities.
In his first response to the issue, Stalin, president of the ruling DMK, said Palanivel Thiaga Rajan (PTR) has already responded to the matter twice.
In MP, the Congress is hoping for a comeback, while in Mizoram, the BJP looking to defeat the Congress in its last bastion in the Northeast.
He, however, did not give any date for the proposed challenge which he announced in his opening remarks at the meeting.
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