Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
UP's representation in the government could diminish, given the BJP's decreased seat count in that state.
'I want to ask the Congress only one question: What is more important than election management in politics?'
Jharkhand Governor Syed Ahmed is understood to have recommended President's rule in the state by keeping the Assembly under suspended animation.
Voting for by-elections to seven assembly constituencies of six states, including Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Tripura, West Bengal, and Jharkhand, started on Tuesday at 7 am.
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
Jammu and Kashmir registered its highest turn-out in assembly elections in the last 25 years with an estimated 65 per cent of voters casting their votes, as the fifth and final phase of polling ended on Saturday. Jharkhand, which also went to the polls along with J&K, broke all previous polling records to witness over 66 per cent of turn-out in the five phases, bettering the previous mark of 54.2 per cent in the 2004 assembly poll.
NDA-MEETING-RESOLUTION PM Modi unanimously elected as NDA leader as he gets ready to form govt (Eds: With pics) New Delhi, Jun 5 (PTI) Leaders of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance unanimously elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the ruling bloc's leader on Wednesday, passing a resolution to underscore the government's commitment to serving the poor, women, youths, farmers and deprived sections of society. They met at Modi's residence here a day after the NDA won a majority of seats in the Lok Sabha election, paving the way for him to take the oath for a third consecutive term, a first for any ruling alliance since 1962. TDP leader N Chandrababu Naidu, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, LJP(R) leader Chirag Paswan and NCP leader Praful Patel were among those who attended the meeting. The resolution said the NDA government will continue working to lift people's living standards for the country's all-round development while conserving its heritage. "We are all proud that the NDA fought the 2024 Lok Sabha polls unitedly under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and won. We all NDA leaders unanimously elect Narendra Modi as our leader," it added. The resolution also said that people have seen the country being developed in every sector in the last 10 years due to the pro-people policies of the NDA government under Modi. PTI KR
The party fielded Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur, while Uttar Pradesh minister Jitin Prasada has replaced Varun Gandhi in Pilibhit.
'Considering the seriousness of the situation, the state government has decided to extend the lockdown till July 31,' Chief Minister Hemant Soren said in a tweet.
Sources claimed 48-year-old Soren was "evasive" in his replies during his questioning and hence was taken into custody under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
Given the dismal show of the Congress in the recently concluded assembly polls and the JMM eating into its vote bank, the possibility of Congress MLAs switching sides is not bleak, reports R Krishna Das.
Campaigning for May 13 elections in 96 Lok Sabha constituencies across 10 states and Union territories including all seats in Andhra Pradesh, where assembly elections are also being held concurrently, and Telangana concluded on Saturday evening.
BJP now governs 35% of country's landmass as against 71% in 2017. 43% of country's population is now governed by the BJP or allies in the states as against over 69 per cent two years ago. In all 3 state polls since its Lok Sabha win, BJP's vote share has fallen by big margins.
"The IAF played a vital role in five of the seven phases of the general elections, flying over 1,000 hours in over 1,750 sorties," it said.
'I welcome Droupadi Murmu as the first Adivasi woman President of India, but her track record has not been good as a politician and governor of Jharkhand when it came to helping Adivasis,' points out activist Gladson Dungdung.
The party has fielded Parvati Das for the by-election to the Bageshwar assembly seat in Uttarakhand and Lijinlal G for the Puthuppally assembly seat in Kerala.
The 19-year-old partnership ended after the ruling party refused to accede to the ally's demand for 17 of 81 seats.
'There was a 77 per cent chance that electorates in India voted for the same party for both the state and Centre when elections were held simultaneously.'
Asked how many seats INDIA bloc will get, Gandhi said, "Have you heard Sidhu Moose Wala's song '295'? So 295 (seats)."
Though the extended tenure of incumbent president JP Nadda ends on June 30, a recent amendment in the BJP's constitution has empowered its apex body, the Parliamentary Board, to take a call related to a president, including his term, in "emergency" situations.
Modi insisted that the Jharkhand government had worked day and night to end corruption over the last five years.
His first stint as chief minister of the tribal state had lasted for just about 14 months since July 15, 2013.
The Election Commission of India has set up more than 200 polling stations within housing societies in the urban areas of Uttar Pradesh to increase the voter turnout in the politically crucial state.
Many issues dog the Mahagathbandhan of the Congress, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha-Prajatantrik and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, the most prominent of which is seat sharing.
The value of the vote of a member of Parliament has gone down to 700 from 708 in the presidential poll scheduled for July 18 due to the absence of a legislative assembly in Jammu and Kashmir.
Political observers lauded the SP's choices in fielding several non-Yadav and Scheduled Caste candidates, the party's alliance with the Congress, and Rahul Gandhi's campaign around the danger to the Constitution if the BJP won a big majority.
Exigencies of electoral politics and individual ambitions often stoke family feuds and sibling rivalries.
BJP on Thursday released its manifesto for the Jharkhand assembly polls.
The Yatra comes a day after the Congress was left high and dry with former ally Nitish Kumar, the Bihar chief minister, making a return to the BJP-led NDA.
A maximum of 92,000 personnel of CAPFs are likely to be deployed in politically volatile West Bengal, where elections will be held in seven phases, followed by 63,500 personnel in militancy-hit Jammu and Kashmir, where polling will be held in five phases.
Although the back-fence talk was that the AJSU would return to the BJP if the Jharkhand verdict was inconclusive, the AJSU's Deosharan Bhagat rejected the hearsay. 'Jharkhand was born out of a long agitation and we were one of the agitators. We won't allow people's hopes to die with short-term compromises. Our slogan is our rule, our government,' he said. Another Sena and Mahato as another Uddhav Thackeray, asks Radhika Ramaseshan.
Over 60 per cent voter turnout was recorded on Monday in 49 constituencies in six states and two Union territories in the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections, with Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir recording its highest-ever voting percentage.
Now, every state election -- first up, Maharashtra, Haryana and Jharkhand later this year, then Delhi in January and Bihar in September next year -- will be seen by his followers for evidence of his recovery, and by rivals of sharpening decline, points out Shekhar Gupta.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
Prime Minister Modi saw a reflection of himself -- she does not come from a political background, has no lineage, and had a lifetime of personal struggle and sacrifice.
While the coalition will not be unstable because of pressures, the effort from partners will be to constantly remind the central government and the BJP how much it is dependent on them.
The seven seats -- Bageshwar in Uttarakhand, Ghosi in Uttar Pradesh, Puthuppally in Kerala, Dhupguri in West Bengal, Dumri in Jharkhand, and Boxanagar and Dhanpur in Tripura -- went to poll on September 5.
There is little doubt that the prime minister's own charisma exceeds that of his party, but 2024 is proof that no party can ultimately depend on one person to deliver victory all the time, points out R Jagannathan.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal mounted a blazing campaign in the hot summer after he was released from the Tihar jail on interim bail on May 10, drawing huge crowds at rallies and roadshows, but it proved insufficient to propel his Aam Aadmi Party past the Bharartiya Janata Party challenge in the national capital.
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