Among the keenly watched contests are those involving former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (Kannauj, UP) and Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai, Bihar), Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur, Bihar) and Raosaheb Danve (Jalna, Maharashtra).
After reaching Patna on Thursday night, Shakti Singh Gohil, Congress's Bihar in-charge, asserted that the situation won't have risen had RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav been out of jail. Lalu is serving a sentence in a fodder scam case in present-day Jharkhand.
Voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will be held on Friday for 88 seats in 13 states with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala.
The Congress's Jharkhand unit on Friday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of 'greed for power' which, it said, has led the saffron party to put on hold withdrawal of support to the Shibu Soren government in the state.Alleging that the BJP was again 'playing the game of numbers', a Congress release said "Frequent change of decisions among the BJP and the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha has not left Jharkhand reeling under a political crisis".
Besides the national capital, polling for the sixth round of the marathon seven-phase elections 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.
The 17th Lok Sabha, which was dissolved on June 5, did not have a deputy speaker for its full term, and it was the second consecutive term of the lower house without an LoP.
The last two I-T teams left the premises, one each in Odisha and Jharkhand, carrying with them a number of seized "incriminating documents" and data cloned from electronic gadgets in the early morning hours.
Two MLAs each from the BJP and the JD(U) were among the five who were inducted into the Cabinet.
An isolated Shibu Soren resigned as Jharkhand Chief Minister on Sunday evening after failing to get the support of the Congress and its ally Jharkhand Vikas Morcha-Prajatantrik ahead of Monday's trust vote in the assembly.
Counting of votes for the 81-member Jharkhand assembly will be taken up on Wednesday to decide the fate of 1,489 candidates who contested the five phase elections from November 25 to December 18.
The Congress is working on stitching together a coalition government in Jharkhand minus Jharkhand Mukti Morcha chief Shibu Soren, who is not interested in discussing any deal which does not make him the chief minister of the state.
A delegation of opposition party leaders on Friday met the top brass of Election Commission to raise its concerns over poll code violations by the ruling party leaders, and also flagged concerns over delay in release of voter turnout figures for the first two phases of the polls.
'Mamata wanted the Congress in alliance with the BJP in Bengal against the Left Front government.' 'Pranab Mukherjee opposed it, stating it would amount to compromising on secularism.' 'In 2021, Mamata defeats the BJP and becomes a champion of secularism.'
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Thursday said he will attend the inauguration of the Ram temple at Ayodhya in January if he is invited to the programme.
The share of candidates who were successful among the BJP was 56.5% in 2019. It was 5% for the Congress.
Glimpses from the Great Election Carnival on Sunday, April 21, 2024
This election will be remembered for being the first election where the Election Commission failed to take action on gross violations involving the ruling party that repeatedly used religion, communal slurs, lies and undocumented allegations, observes Ramesh Menon.
The BJP's top leadership will drop its MPs found to be facing anti-incumbency, according to its internal surveys -- a pivotal tactic to ensure the party achieves its target of winning 370 seats.
"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.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday appointed observers for Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir a day after the party's good show in the assembly elections in the two states.
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.
Exigencies of electoral politics and individual ambitions often stoke family feuds and sibling rivalries.
Disappointed at the Union Cabinet recommending President's Rule in Jharkhand, the Jharkhand Multi Morcha on Thursday said that it was not an alternative to an elected government, while the Congress said that it would abide by the decision of the central leadership.
According to the Aam Aadmi Party, it has received permission from the authorities concerned to hold the rally of more than 20,000 people.
This is a one-sided electoral understanding without taking the RJD into confidence, party's national spokesman Sanjay Paswan said.
He said a petition has been filed before the Supreme Court, seeking an independent probe by a special investigation team into the alleged nexus between political parties and companies for corruption through electoral bonds.
Ravi Shankar Prasad, Bharatiya Janata Party's spokesperson, has confirmed that Shibu Soren is not acceptable to them as the chief minister of Jharkhand and the election commission should fresh election. the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Dal had already rejected Soren's claim, to chief ministership, who had withdrawan support to Madhu Koda government.
From steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal to billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal's Airtel, Anil Agarwal's Vedanta, ITC, Mahindra and Mahindra, and a lesser-known Future Gaming and Hotel Services were among the prominent buyers of the now-scrapped electoral bonds for making political donations.
With the Income Tax department recovering over Rs 225 crore cash during a series of raids on an Odisha-based distillery group on charges of tax evasion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday assured the people that the money looted from the public will be returned.
Polling will take place amidst tight security in 13 Maoist-affected constituencies in the first phase of 5-stage elections to the 81-member Jharkhand Assembly on Tuesday.
"I am fighting a big battle to save my country from the corrupt. That is why they are behind bars today and not getting bail even from the Supreme Court," Modi said.
Kicking off Bharatiya Janata Party's poll campaign in Jharkhand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday launched an attack on the state government over the issue of development and asked the people to free the state from dynastic rule to end corruption.
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.
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.
Those joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers for the first time include three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The Maoist threat should be taken with utmost seriously and the menace should be dealt with in every possible way, political leaders in Jharkhand opined.
Akhilesh Yadav's stock rose dramatically on Tuesday with his Samajwadi Party cutting the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party down to size in Uttar Pradesh.
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.
