Modi said the state election results "give a glimpse" of the outcome of the general elections of 2024.
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.
Counting of votes for the bypolls in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand will be taken up on Sunday.
Three of the fence-sitters rule fairly large states Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha that together send 63 members to Lok Sabha -- where the Congress or other opposition parties have been pushed to the margins.
Several BJP-backed state governments have unveiled schemes targeting the poor, women, farmers and students, following the party's setback in the Lok Sabha polls.
"The voter turnout data for the first two phases of the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha elections published by ECI on April 30 has been published after 11 days of the first phase of polling... on April 19 and four days after second phase of polling... on April 26.
While Chouhan has emerged as a favourite to remain at the helm in MP despite the presence of some challengers, the leadership race is wide open in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, two states where the BJP has snatched power from the Congress.
The government on Wednesday night exuded confidence to get the Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill passed in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, despite not having a clear majority.
Voting for 117 assembly seats in Punjab and 59 assembly constituencies spread across 16 districts of Uttar Pradesh were held on Sunday.
The counting of votes for the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh polls along with six assembly and one Lok Sabha by-elections will commence at 8 am on Thursday with prohibitory orders in place around counting halls to ensure peace and tranquillity.
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.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have got a tough fight in Varanasi had Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contested against him as Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) candidate, feel party workers from the temple town.
Sources said senior leaders of the party have been told to reach out to other leaders of the alliance and talks with some parties have begun.
Some Congress leaders consider Kishor as an "overrated" person and argue that in 2017 assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, he led to the decline of the party.
In a setback to the main opposition Samajwadi Party, the BJP wrested both Rampur and Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.
The serial defeat in elections has earned him the title of "Indori Dharti Pakad", drawing the name from late Kaka Joginder Singh aka 'Dharti Pakad', from Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh who had contested and lost several elections in the country.
The BJP is focusing on 160 seats 'we have never won, seats where we have reasonable support, and those we lost narrowly.'
The beleaguered United Progressive Alliance got a boost on Saturday with the Rashtriya Lok Dal, led by Ajit Singh, deciding to join the coalition at the Centre and fight the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections in alliance with the Congress. Ajit Singh, whose RLD has five members in the Lok Sabha, met Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday evening and expressed his willingness to join UPA. His decision was welcomed by the Congress president.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday appointed Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister Bhupendra Chaudhary as the party's chief in the state.
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.
There was an 8% decline in the BJP's vote share across six regions in UP, and that some OBC castes moved away from the BJP.
Over the medium and long term, the BJP hopes to devour the AIADMK, they having identified the party as 'ideologically not as sound as the DMK', predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Chaudhary Charan Singh, who on Friday was conferred with India's highest civilian award Bharat Ratna, is popularly known as a champion of farmers.
The curious onlookers that greet the candidates are, however, unaware about the importance of history. They are just there to catch a glimpse of 'Rani Ma' Amrita Roy or Mahua Moitra.
The Congress would also take inspiration from history as it was from Karnataka that an embattled Indira Gandhi had revived her dwindling political future by winning a Lok Sabha bypoll from Chikmagalur.
The elections will begin on April 19 followed by subsequent phases on April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1.
"Didi has already said in Delhi that if Akhilesh Yadav needs our help, we are ready to extend help. The gesture of senior SP leader Jaya Bachchan seeking votes for the TMC during the West Bengal Assembly elections will be reciprocated in Uttar Pradesh," said Laliteshpati Tripathi, who recently joined the TMC.
The ruling BJP-led coalition ended Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan's over four-decade dominance in Rampur with its ally Apna Dal-Sonelal winning the Suar assembly by-election by a margin of 8,724 votes.
The Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, where Rahul Gandhi won for the second time in a row, comprises three assembly constituencies each in the tribal district of Wayanad and the Muslim-dominated Malappuram, as well as one in Kozhikode district where Christians hold a significant vote base.
With many of his close associates leaving his side, it is virtually a lone battle for Congress stalwart Kamal Nath to help his parliamentarian son Nakul Nath win from Chhindwara for a second time amid the Bharatiya Janata Party's aggressive push to wrest the seat.
In a setback to Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan, a Rampur court on Thursday rejected his petition challenging his conviction in a hate speech case that led to his disqualification from the Uttar Pradesh assembly.
The case was registered against Khan for allegedly making a provocative speech targeting the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, the then Rampur district election officer and the Election Commission at a rally in the Dhamora area on April 8, 2019 during the Lok Sabha polls.
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.
Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and chief ministers of Congress-ruled states of Rajasthan, Punjab and Chhattisgarh are among those named by the party as its star campaigners in Uttar Pradesh.
Dealing a body blow to the ruling BJP, opposition parties emerged victorious in 11 out of 14 bypolls.
While Modi had a party and an organisation that supported him, all Mulayam, a self-made man with no inheritance in politics, had was a set of (fairly flexible) beliefs.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday met senior party leader Azam Khan at Delhi's Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, a meeting that came amid speculations of a rift between both leaders.
Opposition parties on Wednesday opposed the 'one nation, one election' proposal by calling it impractical and a 'cheap stunt' by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
With the debacle in Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls coming as a shock to the Congress, Rahul Gandhi will be analysing the outcome at a meeting of party leaders here on April six in a move to set the house in order ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has called for tough decisions and unity within the party after the Congress suffered electoral defeats in Maharashtra and Haryana. In a meeting with top party leaders, Kharge highlighted the need to strengthen the organization from the grassroots, fix accountability, and address internal bickering. He also urged leaders to remain united and avoid public criticism of each other. The Congress chief expressed concern over the party's performance in state elections despite a strong showing in the Lok Sabha polls earlier this year. He acknowledged the need to learn from the setbacks and improve the party's strategy and communication to counter its rivals' propaganda.
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