The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for 'one nation, one Election' as recommended by the Kovind panel, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.
'The southern states will have no voice.' 'Political parties in future need to focus only on one region, the northern region, to win the general election.'
These few and far between 'sops for votes' are the reason why the Jenu Kuruba community, which is fighting the government for decades for even the basic amenities -- like land rights, access to water and electricity -- bother to cast their votes, said J K Thimma, head of the settlement.
Just eight months after its good showing in the Lok Sabha polls, the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) seems to be running out of steam with internal bickering and conflicting ambitions resulting in diminishing electoral returns that have once again put the Bharatiya Janata Party in the driver's seat in national politics.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-National Democratic Alliance, which fought the April 2 assembly polls with the fancy claim of winning at least 35 seats in Kerala, on Sunday came a cropper as it failed to retain even its lone segment Nemom, even as all its major contestants, including 'Metroman' E Sreedharan and party state chief K Surendran, fell by the wayside.
While the term of the Maharashtra assembly ends on November 26, that of Jharkhand ends on January 5 next year.
The Congress in Kerala on Friday approached the Election Commission of India (ECI) against the decision of Doordarshan to telecast the controversial movie The Kerala Story, saying it was a 'tacit effort' to divide society on religious grounds to further the electoral prospects of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
He was trolled during the Lok Sabha poll campaign, but despite the tactics by his rivals, action hero Suresh Gopi rose to national stardom in cinema style on June 4, winning the Thrissur seat on a BJP ticket and scripting history for the saffron party in Kerala.
'Both of us are not politicians. We were forced to enter politics to counter corruption that is looting the country.'
Priyanka's victory seems assured, but the broader implications for Kerala's political landscape and South Indian politics remain to be seen.
'Secularism is the life of Kerala, and the BJP is trying to poison this atmosphere.'
The Election Commission has said it will allow suspected fake voters to cast their ballots in the Palakkad assembly by-poll, but will take action against them later. The CPI(M), Congress, and BJP have accused each other of enrolling fake voters. The by-poll is scheduled for November 20.
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.
The state government said these bills had been pending with the governor for as long as about two years and his action "subverted" the functioning of the state legislature, rendering its very existence "ineffective and otiose".
The humiliating rebuff given to the power brokers in Delhi in Kerala's local body election carries a big message: Malayalis thoroughly disapprove of the Modi government's shenanigans to misuse central agencies to destabilise a genuinely popular state government, notes M K Bhadrakumar.
The Opposition Congress alleged that the blast, which occurred around 1 am according to the police, happened during the manufacturing of country-made bombs by some CPI-M supporters.
In a blow to the Congress in poll bound Kerala, Senior leader P C Chacko on Wednesday announced his resignation from the party, alleging group interest in deciding party candidates for the assembly elections.
Political pundits unanimously suggest that the state is not experiencing a discernible Gandhi wave this time around.
'The first and most basic responsibility of any government is to protect its people from external threats and internal harm.' 'Budget 2025-2026 has to focus on meeting this responsibility,' asserts R Jagannathan.
On Easter, April 9, 10,000 BJP workers are being assigned to visit the houses of 100,000 Christian families. Plans are afoot to visit the homes of Muslims on Eid.
Inaugurating the solidarity rally, Venugopal, a Rajya Sabha MP, strongly condemned the war unleashed by Israel in Gaza and their attacks against hospitals and refugee camps there.
Bharatiya Janata Party chief J P Nadda had a couple of days ago met a few top Catholic priests in Kottayam district of Kerala, sources said.
If Kerala wants to sustain its room for independent thinking and talk back to Delhi when needed, it should put its finances in order. Or - if one takes the North East example - Kerala's political posturing may end up commensurate with its financial dependence on others, suggests Shyam G Menon.
If the DMK is able to sustain the momentum until the assembly polls, the AIADMK especially and the PMK and possibly the infant TVK too would find it hard to sign up with the BJP, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
The specter of how the Munambam issue was exploited during the November by-elections is proof of the price Kerala is paying for its emergent politics. Controversies become the stuff of slow-burn and brinkmanship. The former promises mileage; the latter searches for an advantage, notes Shyam G Menon.
The Election Commission is considering advancing the polls by a month to avoid the May heat, reports R Rajagopalan.
While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.
'That was my mistake.' 'Gautam Adani was not involved in forming the Maharashtra government.' 'Adani was not there in the meeting.' 'The meeting was at his guest house and we were sitting in his guest house.'
Mounting a fresh attack on the Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday alleged that for the sake of vote bank politics, it has nurtured, given shelter and surrendered before terror.
An average voter turnout of 20 per cent was recorded in the first four hours of voting in the bypolls to 15 assembly seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand on Wednesday amid an incident of stone pelting in a village in UP's Meerapur and allegations of police personnel deterring voters from casting their ballot.
The grilling of Brigadier-General Dyer by Akshay Kumar's Sir C Sankaran Nair, as shown in Kesari 2, is purely an imaginary sequence, proves Utkarsh Mishra.
'Vote banks will change affiliations and the BJP will come out with good success in Kerala.'
Addressing reporters at his residence soon after the meeting ended, Chowdhury said six names came up before the panel for the selection of the two ECs and the names of Sandhu and Kumar were finalised by a majority of members of the high-powered panel.
The police, in its plea, had contended that the veteran politician violated the bail conditions and, therefore, the bail was liable to be cancelled.
Even as the dust settles on one election, glory in Thiruvananthapuram has come with a new question on the horizon: Who will be UDF's candidate in the next Lok Sabha election given Shashi Tharoor has said 2024 would be his last? It isn't a vacancy that can be easily filled, points out Shyam G Menon.
Postal ballot facility for eligible overseas Indian electors cannot be extended for the upcoming assembly polls as the matter is still under discussion with the Ministry of External Affairs to iron out logistical challenges in implementing the proposal, Lok Sabha was informed.
A high voter turnout was recorded in West Bengal, Assam Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry assembly elections on Tuesday. The massive polling exercise following COVID-19 health protocol and involving lakhs of personnel began at 7 am and the last hour from 6 pm to 7 pm was set aside for COVID-19 patients and those under isolation. The counting of votes in the states will be held on May 2.
At a time when none in Kerala's Left politics questioned the chief minister's authority, MLA P V Anvar hurled a series of accusations against Pinarayi Vijayan's government, notes Shyam G Menon.
A court in Wayanad on Wednesday directed the police to register a case against Bharatiya Janata Party Kerala chief K Surendran on charges of bribing tribal leader and Janathipathya Rashtreeya Party (JRP) president C K Janu to contest as an NDA candidate in the Mananathavady Assembly constituency in the April 6 elections.
Nadda enjoys warm relations with Modi, who was for a long time in charge of the party's affairs in Himachal Pradesh.