'The BJP alliance needs to handle the Maratha quota issue skilfully and address its root cause, which is agrarian distress. Then there is stalled industrialisation. If these issues are addressed, caste fault lines would wither away. But, this is next to impossible in a short span of three-four months.'
Out of the 20 candidates announced by the BJD for the 21 Lok Sabha seats, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's party has nominated at least seven leaders who came from either the Bharatiya Janata Party or the Congress.
A court in New Delhi on Tuesday granted two-hour custody parole to Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdul Rashid to take oath as a Lok Sabha MP on July 5.
Heat wave is believed to have contributed to several voters not turning up at polling stations in both the phases.
Singh's mother also claimed that pressure was being put on him to contest the polls, adding that he will now begin his political innings from Khadoor Sahib.
This will be the first time that the Congress, since its ouster from power in 2014, will get the post of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha. It failed to get the position in the past 10 years as its tally was below the requisite 10 per cent of total seats in the House, both in 2014 and 2019.
Gopi defeated Communist Party of India leader VS Sunilkumar in an exciting fight.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) directed the removal of West Bengal DGP Rajeev Kumar and mandated the appointment of Vivek Sahay, once suspended by the poll panel, as the new state police chief, with the TMC accusing the BJP of controlling the constitutional body.
Interestingly, Soundararajan's resignation comes on a day Prime Minister Narendra Modi held an election rally in Telangana's Jagtial and a roadshow in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore.
Discordant voices emerged on Sunday from the Mahayuti even as the alliance continued to remain in the throes of government formation more than week after it swept the Maharashtra assembly polls.
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.
In violence-hit Manipur, the general buzz associated with elections and the related paraphernalia of posters, banners and rallies are missing but it is the presence of these brown boxes with pictures of guns that is symbolic of the strife-ridden society struggling to return to normalcy.
Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Thursday came out in support of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who was involved in a face-off with Union minister Smriti Irani in the Lok Sabha, and said the 75-year-old leader was 'encircled and heckled pack-wolf style'.
The prime minister had gone on a similar meditation exercise in a Kedarnath cave after the 2019 poll campaign.
He cautioned the party workers and emphasised the importance of management to ensure electors reach polling booths and cast their votes.
The Congress and the AAP fought the Lok Sabha polls together in Delhi while they had contested separately in Punjab.
Forty-two of the 102 Lok Sabha seats going to polls in the general election's first phase are constituencies that have three or more candidates facing criminal cases, according to a poll rights body.
"Last time I stood, I was not allowed to speak. The ruling party paid a very heavy price for throttling the voice of one MP," she said, referring to her suspension in the last session.
Fadnavis' announcement comes at a time when a section of Bharatiya Janata Party in Kalyan has expressed reservations against fielding Shrikant Shinde, the sitting MP from Shiv Sena.
The session will conclude on July 3.
Delhi and Punjab are ruled by the AAP and these are the only two states that have free electricity supply, he said.
MARD has lost deposits on all seats it has contested so far since it was formed in 2018 but its leaders say they are undeterred by elections losses.
The over two-minute campaign song, penned and sung by AAP MLA Dilip Pandey, was released at the party headquarters in New Delhi on Thursday.
The previous highest voter turnout in the Baramulla Lok Sabha constituency was witnessed in 1984 at 58.90 percent.
In 2014, Vardhan had defeated Kapil Sibal, then with the Congress, to win the Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha seat while in the 2019 polls, he trounced Congress' Jai Prakash Agarwal.
Polling is scheduled in all 20 seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, six seats in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said the EC was very enthused by the voter turnout in Jammu and Kashmir during the Lok Sabha elections, which showed the eagerness of the people to participate in the democratic process.
His political career began with his involvement in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and he later became a member of the Shiv Sena.
The notice requested Rashid or a representative of his to appear before the district expenditure monitoring committee within two days to address the discrepancy and ensure timely submission of the expenditure report to the Election Commission of India.
People in these villages routinely encounter big cats that stray into their farms from the adjoining Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, a bustling habitat for the Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris).
With poll fever gathering steam, business is booming for New Delhi's detective agencies as politicians, especially aspiring candidates, are hiring private eyes to spy on their rivals and even colleagues.
Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi and Speaker Om Birla had a verbal exchange in the Lok Sabha on Monday when the Congress leader questioned why he bowed before Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Modi also said the way the Indian elections are being conducted could be a learning process for other democracies.
Additionally, the Haryana police and home guard personnel will be deployed for security during the elections, he said.
According to party sources, the Congress leadership has been making efforts to convince some ministers and lawmakers to contest, as they have faced problems in identifying winnable candidates in several segments.
Assembly elections will be held in four states with the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections, which will start from April 19, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar announced on Saturday.
"Let's work it out. There has to be some parity," the high court said.
A high-level committee on Thursday recommended simultaneous elections for Lok Sabha and state assemblies as the first step followed by synchronised local body polls within 100 days.
A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta, which continued hearing on the Kejriwal's plea challenging his arrest for the consecutive day, posed several queries to Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, appearing for the ED, and sought his reply on Friday.
A majority of over 50,000 internally displaced people are currently staying at relief centres across five valley districts and three hill districts.
