Biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha will be held on March 26 to fill the seats of 55 members from 17 states who will be retiring in April 2020, the Election Commission of India stated on Tuesday.
More than ever before, women voters can make or mar a political party's electoral fortunes.
The Election Commission on Monday agreed before the Supreme Court to amend its blanket order for seizing cash amount above Rs 2.5 lakh in transit during the Gujarat assembly elections.
Election to fill up 55 seats in the Upper House of Parliament was to be held on March 26, but 37 candidates have already been elected without a contest.
Rawat also said a legal framework is needed to be in place for holding simultaneous polls.
The EC said that Pradeep Singh Jadeja, MLA, had printed pamphlets showing photograph of himself and the chief minister with the BJP symbol Lotus alongside the picture of 'Maa Amba'.
Rajya Sabha member Pravin Rashtrapal, who has been re-nominated by the Congress from Gujarat for the biennial elections to the Upper House, on Friday filed his nomination papers in Gandhinagar.
The dates for the crucial assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh have been finalised and will be announced by the Election Commission on Wednesday.
While Modi had a party and an organisation that supported him, all Mulayam, a self-made man with no inheritance in politics, had was a set of (fairly flexible) beliefs.
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.
The half-page advertisements in Hindi and Gujarati in almost all English and language dailies had accused the UPA government of trying to rub salt into the wounds of the people affected in the 2002 Sabarmati Express train burning case.
'Look at the number of billionaires, the number of new billionaires in India.' 'Adani and Ambani are not the only ones.' 'What's wrong with people making money as long as it benefits us?'
'The BJP must realise that a resurgent Rahul Gandhi will take the battle straight into its camp.' 'He is not going to be held back by the misdeeds of UPA 1 and 2, so there is no point harping on them,' says Sanjeev Nayyar.
The Act deals with automatic disqualification of MPs and state legislators upon being convicted and sentenced for two years or more in a criminal case.
Launched under Bharatiya Janata Party's supervision and carrying Chief Minister Narendra Modi's initials, the new 'NaMo Gujarat' television channel on Thursday got the Election Commission's nod but with some riders in the election-bound state, where the model code of conduct is in force.
Congress Lok Sabha candidate Imran Masood was arrested on Saturday on charges of hate speech in which he threatened to "chop" Narendra Modi "into pieces", remarks that led to a first information being filed against him by the police besides sparking an outrage.
Saharanpur Congress candidate Imran Masood has stirred up a controversy by threatening to "chop Narendra Modi into pieces", inviting sharp criticism from the Bharatiya Janata Party which termed the remark as "inflammatory" and sought strict action by the Election Commission.
The Gujarat government's law to make voting compulsory in local body polls in Gujarat has failed to impress the Election Commission which believes that extending the idea across the country is 'impractical'. "Such proposals have come up for discussion in the Commission on many occasions earlier. For India, it is full of difficulties. We also consider that democracy and compulsion do not go hand-in-hand," Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi said.
While the Congress is elated to see the new caste dynamics coming to its rescue, the BJP still believes that no one is leaving its ship.
The dealers operating in the space have jumped nearly three times over the past two years.
Pawar made the announcement at the 25th anniversary of the party, founded by him and P A Sangma in 1999.
Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi cited a viral video on social media platforms, claiming that in it Modi's voice is heard in a call with BJP rebel Kripal Parmar.
Any move of the present government to appease the Marathas may boomerang. Eknath Shinde is a worried man with the agitation not having an easy solution, notes Ramesh Menon.
Upcoming Navratra festivities will be under the scanner of Election Commission which is likely to ban all kind of political activities in poll-bound Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh during the nine-day affair.
The BJP sharpened its attack on the AAP after its Gujarat chief Gopal Italia was heard purportedly mocking the prime minister's mother in a video, and said people of the state will make it pay for 'abusing' her.
The Congress on Saturday made a stunning comeback in Karnataka ousting the Bharatiya Janata Party from its lone southern citadel with a comfortable majority in a morale booster win that will be key for reviving its electoral fortunes ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The Election Commission decided Monday to issue a notice to Congress leader Shankersinh Vaghela for allegedly making hate speeches while campaigning in poll-bound Gujarat.
Nowadays, our politics is habituated to sitting on a high pedestal, hobnobbing with world leaders, generating impressions of a superpower and returning to earth for the purpose of winning elections. In contrast, the yatra never left earth, observes Shyam G Menon.
If the party is unable to do well in Gujarat and Karnataka polls, it could lose this status in the subsequent binneial elections to the upper House.
Overall, the implications of these elections will favour the BJP in the Upper House where it is short of a numerical majority but has an operational majority.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde has stoked a controversy by his candid admission about spending Rs 8 crore on his 2009 Lok Sabha campaign, with Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil demanding that the Election Commission take cognizance and decide on whether to allow him to contest again.
After securing an approval for a plan size of Rs 59,000 crore (Rs 590 billion) for this fiscal, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on sparred with the Centre over social sector development in the state as he countered Planning Commission's assessment that lot more needs to be done.
Speaking to reporters in Thane, Pawar accused the Narendra Modi government of failing to fulfil any of the promises made by it since 2014 including bringing 'acche din, connecting villages through the internet, and providing toilets, water, and power to every household'.
A First Information Report has been registered against Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Pravin Togadia for inciting communal passions after he allegedly asked locals of a society in Bhavnagar, Gujarat to forcibly occupy a house purchased by a Muslim man in a Hindu-dominated locality.
The Congress on Monday hit out at Narendra Modi and his close aide Amit Shah for carrying out a "communal campaign" and demanded action by the Election Commission against Shah for his controversial remark that Azamgarh in UP was a "base of terrorists".
While the responses of the candidates were predictable, depending on which side they belonged to, an interesting point slipped through when Rahul Shewale cited the Dharavi Redevelopment Project as a scheme that would add to Mumbai's importance. No big infrastructural project in Mumbai, he said, could be successful without the Centre's nod.
Rampur Sadar and Khatauli in Uttar Pradesh, Padampur in Odisha, Sardarshahar in Rajasthan, Kurhani in Bihar and Bhanupratappur in Chhattisgarh are the assembly seats where the bypolls are being held.
The poll body also termed as "scurrilous" the AAP leader's claim that the Commission is encouraging bribery by restraining him from uttering such statements.
The Election Commission has issued a show cause notice to Gujarat Congress president Arjun Modhwadia for his reported remarks on the personal life of Chief Minister Narendra Modi and also for comparing him with animals and asked him to file his reply by November 24.
A total of 89 seats -- out of 182 -- spanning the Saurashtra and south Gujarat regions, are up for grabs in the first phase with 977 candidates in the fray, including Chief Minister Vijay Rupani.
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