Candidates or their agents who have received both the doses of Covid-19 vaccine can also enter the counting hall on May 2 when votes for Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu will be counted, according to the guidelines issued on Wednesday.
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.
A bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana agreed to hear next week the EC's plea after senior advocate Vikas Singh submitted a large number of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail machines (VVPATs) are still being preserved and need to be released.
The Lt Governor conveyed to the Delhi government that the rules will have to be amended for shunning the EVMs and it was not possible to make the changes as little over a month is left for the polls.
The tallying of VVPAT slips with the votes cast and stored in the EVMs will be done to demonstrate that the voting system has been working perfectly.
The Election Commission on Thursday said that there were 'multiple factors' leading to the delay in the announcement of the Gujarat assembly polls, adding that the recent Morbi bridge collapse tragedy was one of them.
Arvind Kejriwal said that 20-25% of AAP's votes transferred to SAD-BJP.
To clear doubts over EVMs, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi will soon call all-party meet.
The Election Commission told the AAP chief that tampering was not possible.
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".
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.
A 7.8 per cent increase in votes for the JD-U-RJD-Congress alliance over BJP-led NDA's tally fetched it another 120 seats catapulting the Nitish Kumar-led coalition to a landslide two-third majority.
The parties failed to make an impact with their voteshares getting restricted to 2 per cent or below.
The Election Commission has placed orders estimated at more than Rs 300 crore with Electronics Corporation of India Ltd and Bharat Electronics Ltd to deliver Electronic Voting Machines for the Lok Sabha elections.
Indications are that the polls could be held sometime in October-November.
Polling was held for over hundred civic bodies in Punjab on Sunday amid stray incidents of skirmishes at some places.
The Election Commission sought a detailed report from the district poll authorities in Bhind, where a bypoll is due on April 9.
"We agreed to contest fewer seats (than the BJP), but I cannot accommodate the BJP every time. I should allow my party to grow," the Sena chief said.
A high-level committee to explore the feasibility of conducting simultaneous elections, headed by former president Ram Nath Kovind, held its first meeting in New Delhi on Saturday and decided to invite political parties and the Law Commission to seek their views on holding synchronised polls in the country, a statement said.
As many as 69 assembly constituencies in the Yadav heartland, considered crucial for the ruling Samajwadi Party in the state, went to the polls in this phase.
Here is the detailed procedure of how the AAP MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj 'tampered' an EVM.
If left unchecked, the 2024 elections may be infamously remembered as the election of deepfakes. The ECI has a tough task ahead, but, more importantly, it has an opportunity to become a global model for scores of countries going to polls this year, notes Ajay Kumar.
The chief minister has lost her cool twice in the last few weeks over people chanting 'Jai Sri Ram' at some places in the state while her motorcade was passing through.
When the votes get counted for the assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party will be hoping to set a few new records.
Hindu temples are also coming up in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, the prime minister told the gathering.
The dinner was followed by a meeting in which nearly two dozen allies facilitated Prime Minister Modi.
A group of five people, including candidates but excluding security personnel, is allowed to take part in door-to-door campaigning.
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.
Leaders of 22 opposition parties met the Election Commission and demanded verification of VVPAT slips of randomly-selected polling stations before the counting of the votes.
As voting got underway in this high-profile Lok Sabha constituency, AAP candidate Arvind Kejriwal said his direct fight was with Bharatiya Janata Party's Narendra Modi and Congress' Ajay Rai was nowhere in the contest.
The Aam Aadmi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party are going all-out to ensure that polling in Varanasi on Monday is conducted in a free and fair manner.
"It is very unfortunate that a party which was formed on a promise of alternative politics, on the promise of practising transparency, accountability, internal democracy and not resorting to power politics broke all promises. It became like an ordinary conventional political party," said Bhushan.
Most leaders agreed for early finalisation of poll plans for 2024 stressing that there was no time left with them and mere meetings would not help.
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.
Mian Javed Latif said a decision on PML-N supremo and the three-time prime minister Sharif's anticipated return will be discussed with the coalition partners.
"If the direction of satellites to Mars and Moon can be controlled from the earth, then why can't EVM be hacked," Udit Raj said in a tweet in Hindi. "If elections were held in America with EVMs, could Trump have lost," he asked.
Chidambaram told SC that to assure accuracy in the voting process, paper trail is needed as there were chances of tampering with EVMs.
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.
Security measures have been heightened in view of the violence in the previous phases, particularly the death of five people in Cooch Behar in the fourth phase of polling on April 10, an Election Commission official said.
Should NOTA ever get the maximum number of votes (which makes it the 'winner'), then a re-election should be held and all the candidates should be disqualified.'
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