Last time, assembly polls in West Bengal were held in eight phases -- by far the maximum. In Assam, elections were held in two phases, and in a singular phase in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry.
Political observers said the announcement assumes significance as the state prepares for the assembly elections, with political parties stepping up outreach to various community groups.
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The West Bengal government has filed FIRs against five state government employees for alleged lapses in electoral roll revisions, following an Election Commission ultimatum. The action comes after the EC directed the state to initiate criminal cases against the accused for adding fictitious names to voter lists.
Nitin Nabin has been formally declared as the BJP national president, succeeding J P Nadda. The leadership transition was witnessed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior ministers.
The Election Commission is ramping up preparations for a special intensive revision of voter lists across India, assessing the progress made on mapping current electors with voters as per the last SIR in different states.
The election expenditure limit for candidates has been hiked to Rs 95 lakh from Rs 70 lakh for Lok Sabha elections and to Rs 40 lakh from Rs 28 lakh for assembly polls, the Election Commission said on Thursday citing a law ministry notification.
The Election Commission is expected to initiate a phased, pan-India special intensive revision (SIR) of the voters' list, prioritizing states with upcoming assembly elections. This cleanup exercise aims to weed out illegal foreign migrants and ensure accurate electoral rolls.
The Bharatiya Janata Party swept Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh on Sunday inflicting a resounding defeat on the Congress to tighten its stranglehold in the Hindi heartland, setting the tone for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Here's how the voting pattern in the five states that went to polls recently has changed since 2012.
Here's how brokerages across the country are interpreting the exit polls.
Here are constituency wise mapped results for all the assembly elections.
''The outcome of the state polls may lead to some strategy-related permutations and combinations and the markets may extrapolate it to the likely outcome in the general elections.'
A mathematical model is used to calculate how seat distribution will be altered as sentiment/percentage of votes towards a contesting political party changes.
In 2019, an all-party meeting was held in Delhi and it was attended by 19 political parties to discuss critical reforms in governance. One of the subjects of the discussions was simultaneous elections
Results of the assembly polls held in five states -- UP, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa, Punjab.
After Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram would go for polls this year.
Announcing the election schedule with a strong focus on digital and virtual modes of campaigning, Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra said the ban on rallies, roadshows, nukkad sabhas, padayatras and vehicle rallies will be reviewed on January 15.
The constitution of a committee by the Centre to explore the feasibility of "one nation, one election" has opened up the possibility of Lok Sabha polls being advanced so that they could be held with a string of state assembly polls.
Elections may be a few months away, but the government may get into election mode much earlier than that, predicts A K Bhattacharya.
It said that increased focus on expenditure monitoring was the reason being the seizures, which included freebies such as sarees, 'food kits', pressure cookers and kitchen appliances.
The five-state assembly elections are seen as a now-or-never, no-holds battle for the Congress, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The commission will announce the dates for assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Telangana and Mizoram.
The counting of votes in three out of four states on Sunday showed that less than 1 percent of the voters exercised the 'none of the above' option in the just-concluded assembly polls, according to the election commission.
Here are constituency-wise results mapped for the four state assembly elections -- in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram.
other polls being held in the union territory, CEC Rajiv Kumar said.
'The allegations of government involvement in targeted assassinations abroad are likely to help, not hurt, the ruling party.' 'True or false, they convey a sense of muscularity and, in some quarters, are celebrated as a harbinger of 'great power' status.'
The poll panel said the seizures made since the polls were announced on October 9 are over seven times (Rs 239.15 crore) the seizures made in the previous assembly elections in these states in 2018.
The results for bypolls to seven assembly seats in six states will be declared on Friday in what is being seen as a major test for the opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance ahead of the polls in five states later this year and Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
The sources said the opposition leaders would now plan joint rallies that were put on hold due to the assembly elections.
A win for SP could provide some consolation for Akhilesh Yadav after the defeat in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections early this year and the loss of Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats to the BJP in June bypolls.
The Election Commission is considering advancing the polls by a month to avoid the May heat, reports R Rajagopalan.
Between 2019 and 2023, average sittings of the assembly in Chhattisgarh was 23 days a year, with average sitting time being five hours.
An analysis of seats across the five states shows that the race was won on tighter margins than five years ago, except for Punjab and Uttarakhand.
In the months to come, the skies above promise to be a captivating theatre of action, where helicopters play starring roles, ferrying leaders, and echoing the pulse of democracy.
Modi's BJP has promised more revdis or freebies for these assembly elections than ever before, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The West Bengal polls will be in five phases.
Electoral bonds have been pitched as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties as part of efforts to bring transparency to political funding.
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