Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat on Thursday rejected the suggestion was the organisation exercised "remote control" over the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA government at the Centre and said the Narendra Modi dispensation was initiating some good changes.
More than 750 constituencies spread across four states and one union territory will go to the polls on Tuesday
Allegations of electronic voting machines malfunctioningreturned to haunt the Election Commission as four Lok Sabha seats and nine assembly constituencies went for bypolls on Monday across 10 states with moderate-to-heavy voting amid prestige at stake for the Bharatiya Janata Party as well as opposition parties ahead of the 2019 general elections.
Till he took over, political parties ferrying people to the polling stations was considered quite 'normal', and it was during Seshan's stint that it became impossible with the model code being made sacrosanct.
Polling to elect representatives to the 140-member Kerala assembly, 232-member Tamil Nadu assembly and the 30-member Puducherry territorial assembly began at 7 am on Monday.
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.
Ahead of VK Sasikala's return to Tamil Nadu on February 8, there are some important questions facing her. One, does she carry electoral weight more now than her brainchild AMMK had in the 2019 LS polls? Two, can she retain or build upon the five per cent vote-share from that time? And finally, is there space for Sasikala to retrieve, first within the AIADMK and then across the state, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP distanced itself from her statement saying it did not agree with her, as "Mahatma Gandhi's killer cannot be a patriot".
The full grant of OROP would raise annual military pensions to Rs 75,000 crore, only slightly less than the salary bill of Rs 93,216 crore.
The term of the Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura legislative assemblies is ending on March 6, March 13 and March 14 respectively.
The EC again rubbished the Aam Aadmi Party's claim that EVMs could be tampered with
The perception that 'winnability' is based on gender is very strong, even though, if you break up the electoral success rate by sexes, the women who do win elections are proportionally far more successful than the men who win, given the huge number of men they have to beat.
The presence of a rebel Congress candidate Mani Kumar Subba, a former MP, in the fray has complicated equations in Assam's Tezpur parliamentary constituency where Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi's choice Bhupen Kumar Borah is finding the going tough amid 'Modi wave' sweeping across the seat.
'If the Modi government is successful in extraditing a high-profile fugitive such as Vijay Mallya or Nirav Modi before the 2019 election, the government will be able to link demonetisation to this and turn it into a positive.'
'The Bihar verdict has shown that the people of Bihar don't desire to go back to the mandir-masjid rhetoric.' 'Jobs, wages and development are the aspiration of the people of Bihar and we hope the next government will keep that in mind.'
The final figure of polling could increase and it will be available on Tuesday, officials said.
'The innate fascism of the RSS is overshadowing Modi's development programme,' says Amulya Ganguli.
In the circumstances, an independent probe alone would establish the truth, starting from Koodangulam. It is more so in the case of Marina violence, which may even at this late hour hold a candle to the events and developments in Thoothukudi, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The revived factionalism in the AIADMK, if not curbed now, has the potential to split the party vertically, warns N Sathiya Moorthy.
The PM treaded sensitive ground by asking first-time voters to dedicate their first vote to those who carried out air strike in Balakot.
In keeping with the trend seen elsewhere in the country so far, an all-time-high 76.82 percent of the voters exercised the franchise in the two Lok Sabha constituencies of Goa on Saturday.
He was accompanied by his father, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray, and mother Rashmi while filing nomination papers.
He secured required 44 votes after votes of two Congress MLAs who cross-voted for BJP were rejected by EC.
Secularism as a principle and practice in India is in "danger", but "forces of hatred" cannot alter the country's secular character, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said during an interview on his new book 'The Battle of Belonging'. In the book, Tharoor makes a stinging critique of the Hindutva doctrine, asserting that it is a political doctrine, not a religious one.
Justice Chelameswar led three senior judges to an unprecedented press conference, mounting a virtual revolt against CJI Dipak Misra.
This is the first time in many years that the BJP has been elected to the gram panchayat level in every district of the state.
Counting's underway and the fate of the candidates is awaited. As we wait for the results with bated breath, here's how your heavyweights are faring for now.
'The time has come to substitute the present Constitutional set-up with an alternative democratic framework,' argues B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
Voting will be held in 55 seats on Sunday in the penultimate phase of Bihar election, with stakes high for the Bharatiya Janata Party as it had along with its then ally Janata Dal-United bagged majority of seats in last assembly polls.
Calculated or otherwise, if Azhagiri's firing of the first salvo after Karunanidhi's death does not create some space for him to politico-electorally exploit at a later date, there may not be any space left for him at all, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Given the twin embarrassments of a TTV win and party nominee Karu Nagarajan losing his deposit, polling fewer votes than NOTA, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP boss Amit Shah would be pushed to rethink their strategy. Tamil Nadu would thus become a part of the BJP's grander strategy for 2019 rather than a stand-alone affair, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Barmer, one of the most talked-about Lok Sabha constituencies in the run up to the 2014 general elections, registered 71.60 per cent turn out in the polls held on Thursday, one of the highest in Rajasthan.
The poll holding exercise has witnessed a whopping jump by 80 times to Rs 846 crore since 1952 when it was mere Rs 10 crore.
When it comes to the winning strike rate, Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal has emerged victorious on eight of every ten seats it contested while only one of the every three Bharatiya Janata Party candidates managed to win.
The man who could well have been a high-level corporate may have to content himself being deputy chief minister. But other challenges await.
BJP strategists need to remember even at this late hour that 'negativism' sells when you are in the Opposition as the Indian voter has mostly voted anti-incumbency, and not when you are in power. You still needed to highlight your achievements and promises, and let the voter draw his conclusions, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The 41-year-old 'young gun' travelled the length and breadth of the state to strengthen the party at the grassroots level and ensure its comeback.
The schedule for Gujarat will be announced separately.
Recommending statutory backup to the model code of conduct, a parliamentary committee has sought to take away certain powers vested with the Election Commission like de-recognising a political party.
Assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Odisha will be held simultaneously in the first phase.
