Brisk polling was seen for the Wayanad Lok Sabha and the Chelakkara assembly seats in Kerala as they witnessed a turnout of 20.54 and 19.08 per cent, respectively, after the first three hours of voting on Wednesday.
Of the 2,67,82,371 votes cast in the state, 3,27,911 were cast in favour of NOTA while 2,72,642 were in favour of AAP. Shahnawaz Akhtar reports.
Angry members of the Congress and other opposition parties forced adjournments of the proceedings as they questioned the NOTA provision for these elections.
The BJP on Wednesday approached the Election Commission seeking removal of the None Of The Above or NOTA option in the upcoming Rajya Sabha election in Gujarat, a day after the Congress made a similar demand.
'Arithmetic could decide the Haryana election given the presence of multi-cornered contests.'
On Tuesday, the Congress had approached the EC against NOTA in RS polls.
The SC asked Gujarat Congress 'why is it so late in raising question over the use of NOTA'.
If the Aam Aadmi Party made an impressive debut in Indian politics in Delhi, so did the 'None of the Above' option in Rajasthan.
Close to 60 lakh voters opted for the None of The Above option across the country while exercising their franchise in the 16th Lok Sabha polls, with the maximum percentage of the electorate going for this choice in Puducherry.
As Mumbai goes to the polls today, film folk did their primary duty for the country and cast their votes.
A much larger number of candidates could garner less than 500 votes each.
The hapless voters fervently hope that they get to make a more equal choice in the next election and political discourse in the country becomes positive and more enlightened. One wonders if the masses would become more politically aware to discern good intent and performance from gimmickry, notes Biswajit Dasgupta.
Seeking to end confusion regarding the use of 'none of the above' option in the Rajya Sabha and state legislative council elections, the Election Commission has come out with a fresh set of instructions to prevent rejection of vote.
With all 29 under its belt, the BJP became the first political party to achieve such a feat after 40 years in Madhya Pradesh.
'I thought AAP will uphold administrative fairness which is not there. And it is an indication of the fact that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely'
The elections to 32 assembly constituencies in Sikkim were held simultaneously with the first phase of Lok Sabha elections on April 19.
The 50-lakh-strong community of sex workers in India is seriously considering the NOTA option while exercising their franchise in the Lok Sabha election to register protest against deprivation and apathy.
'Just today a shopkeeper I went to was saying how bad business is. He must have been a BJP supporter.' 'He finally said, "It's a good thing there's an NDA government, not a BJP government, 'they' had become too big for their boots,".'
'The Congress in the past backed the demand, but will not support it now since the SP opposes any division of UP.'
Campaigning for May 13 elections in 96 Lok Sabha constituencies across 10 states and Union territories including all seats in Andhra Pradesh, where assembly elections are also being held concurrently, and Telangana concluded on Saturday evening.
'If the Pawars are so powerful, then why are they scared of me?'
Singh defeated Bharatiya Janata Party's Dara Singh Chauhan in the bypoll to the Ghosi Assembly constituency in Mau district with a margin of 42,759 votes on Friday.
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).
'I don't know whether on voting day there will be intimidation from some militant groups to vote for a particular person and then force them from voting for another in the stronghold of the candidate which does not favour them, or, force them not to come out for voting.' 'Anything is possible.'
'After a month of working on the new machine, I realised that the black glass on the VVPAT lets the programmer manipulate not just the electronic system, but the paper vote too.' 'And it will not be detected even during the mock poll or the actual voting because of the black glass.'
If she cannot recast the party, bring together the factions opposed to her, and present herself as her brother's true challenger, there will be little left for her in politics, notes Aditi Phadnis.
The Congress secured 43.90 per cent vote share as it wrested Himachal Pradesh from the Bharatiya Janata Party, winning 40 seats in the 68-member assembly in the hill state which maintained its tradition of voting the incumbent government out of power since 1985.
'Unless she joins one of the coalitions, she has a bleak future.' 'The NDA option is suicidal, but INDIA could help her.'
In Jharsuguda, Dipali Das secured a total of 1,07,198 votes receiving 60.93 per cent of the votes polled, while Tripathy bagged 58,477 votes (33.24 per cent).
The Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal on Tuesday sparred on social media over Tejashwi Yadav's suggestion that the grand old party must focus on over 200 seats on which it is in direct fight with the saffron party, while taking a 'backseat' in states where regional parties are a formidable force.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday won four seats in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha, while the Rashtriya Janata Dal retained the Mokama assembly seat in the bypolls to seven assembly constituencies in six states.
The vote share of the Congress, which won 11 assembly seats in Goa this time, plunged by nearly five per cent as compared to what it was in the previous election, while the BJP, which retained power in the coastal state, saw a marginal rise in it, the data shared by the Election Commission shows.
'And when the floats go by in the parade garlanded and decorated with the posters of gun toting assassins and murderers and martyrs, you look the other way.' 'And in return we will bring you 10,000 votes because the people of the gurdwaras will vote as we tell them to vote.'
A total of 13 functionaries from the Tamil Nadu unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday quit the party to join its alliance partner the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).
Rule of law prevents a government, brought to power by the strength of ballots, from betraying the trust of citizens and "lapsing into a government of caprice, nepotism and finally despotism", the Supreme Court said on Thursday.
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.
With the declaration of results for the Tripura Assembly polls on Thursday, the Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power in the state by winning 32 seats and its ally Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) winning one.
From the voter-level, traditionally anti-BJP, anti-Hindutva minorities and other secular voters would have an option, especially in the face of the mounting anti-incumbency against the ruling party -- as it happened in the 2001 assembly polls, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party managed to notch up a morale-boosting win on its 'Mission Northeast' on Thursday by retaining Tripura emphatically, despite anti-incumbency and newcomer Tipra Motha playing spoilers to its party, while also piggy-backing to power in Nagaland on Neiphiu Rio-led NDPP's shoulder.
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