The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held the core group meeting of five states on Saturday at the party headquarters in New Delhi.
Coincidentally, the two first-term members got seats adjacent to each other in the House.
Campaigning ended on Wednesday evening for 102 Lok Sabha seats across 21 states and Union territories which will go to polls in the first phase on April 19 with top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) making a last-gasp effort to woo voters.
More than two lakh paramilitary personnel, thousands of vehicles and nearly a dozen helicopters will be deployed across the country to ensure smooth and violence-free elections beginning April 7.
Barring Maharashtra, the poll percentage in rest of the states was in excess of 60 per cent while in Puducherry it was 80.47 per cent.
The saffron party had realised after the first phase of the elections that it was "on the backfoot," Pilot said.
The skirmish took place around noon in a dense forest near Mahla village in Kanker district
It dropped sitting MP from Guna, Krishnapal Singh Yadav, to field Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia from the seat.
Hemant V Shivsaran/Rediff.com does a deep dive and lists the winners with the highest and lowest margins in the recent Lok Sabha elections.
The IMD has warned of heatwave to severe heatwave conditions in parts of West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh during the next five days.
Three security personnel suffered injuries in the fierce gun-battle and a large quantity of weapons was also recovered from the spot, the state police said.
The two tribal dominated divisions of Surguja and Bastar having 26 assembly seats that contributed hugely to the Congress' landslide victory in Chhattisgarh in 2018 have swung to the Bharatiya Janata Party this time.
The party renominated Shashi Tharoor from the Thiruvananthapuram seat.
Congress Vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday raked up "snoopgate" controversy to lash out at BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi saying the BJP's PM nominee is so desperate for power that he can even "divide the nation" to achieve his goal.
Two tiffin bombs, suspected to be planted by Maoists to target security forces and polling parties during the Lok Sabha elections, were uncovered by authorities in the insurgency-hit Kanker district of Chhattisgarh.
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 Congress has pinned its hopes on many of the old-timers and also given representation to some new faces in its first list of candidates announced for the Chhattisgarh assembly polls scheduled next month.
Concerned over high incidents of violence, the Home ministry has asked the Election Commission to conduct the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in 33 Naxal-hit districts in the first phase to ensure maximum security and minimum casualties.
The MP of Kanker, Chhattisgarh, on why local support is needed to counter the Naxals.
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.
Abhishek Singh, the son of Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, a member of Legislative Assembly and former minister Vikram were prominent among 12 candidates who filed their nominations on Monday for the Lok Sabha elections.
Moderate to high turnout on Saturday marked the bye-elections held in three Lok Sabha and 33 assembly constituencies spread across 10 states in an exercise seen as yet another key test of the Narendra Modi government's popularity since it assumed power in May.
Dantewada recorded lowest turnout with 49 per cent voting.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is eyeing a fourth straight term in the tribal-dominated state as the opposition Congress seeks to return to power after 15 years.
The scam-ridden Congress government in Chhattisgarh has become a model of misrule and people have decided to root it out in the upcoming assembly elections, he said.
In the second phase on April 18, 97 seats,spread across 13 states and one Union Territory, will go to the polls.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has said the party cannot afford the spectacle of its ministers and state presidents running away from a tough contest. Anita Katyal reports
Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly condemned the attack.
The Lok Sabha election will be held in 7 phases, beginning on April 11, 2019 and ending on May 19, 2019.
Narendra Modi on Thursday trained his guns on Sonia Gandhi, saying she should speak up on coal and 2G spectrum scams as he alleged that the Congress was "misleading" the country on issues like development, inflation and employment generation.
As the dust finally settles on the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections 2019 and Bharatiya Janata Party along with its NDA allies emerges as the clear winner, here is a list of who won in each of the 7 phases of elections.
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