To review the security and other poll arrangements ahead of Assembly elections in five states, the Election Commission will hold a meeting of chief secretaries, directors general of police and chief electoral officers of poll-bound and neighbouring states in New Delhi on Wednesday.
'Entire process of meeting individual legislators of Congress party has been completed with great bohemia.'
Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde's faction on Thursday told the Supreme Court that pleas related to the June 2022 Maharashtra political crisis fell within the realm of politics and judiciary cannot be asked to adjudicate the issue.
Maharashtra is the BRS' first target.
The sessions court in Mumbai on Friday sentenced Parvez Tak to death in the 2011 murder of his step-daughter and actor Laila Khan, her mother and four siblings.
If a local court in Mumbai allows former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh and minister Nawab Malik to cast their votes in the June 10 Rajya Sabha elections, the two leaders will be brought to the Vidhan Bhavan, the state legislature complex in Mumbai, at a specific time to take part in the voting process, an official said on Wednesday.
Talking to reporters, he claimed that despite a split in the Shiv Sena, majority of the "hardcore" Shiv Sainiks who work on the ground stand behind Uddhav Thackeray.
Ever since the Election Commission sounded the poll bugle on March 5, over 800 kg of explosives and 127 improvised bombs have been recovered by security forces from across Naxal violence-hit areas.
Maharashtra Speaker Nana Patole on Tuesday said he has asked the state legislature to frame a law to give voters the option of using ballot papers besides electronic voting machines (EVMs) in the local governing bodies' and state assembly polls.
Amit Shah said simultaneous polls would curb expenditure.
Deriving from Narendra Modi's continuing charisma, the proposed scheme, if and when implemented, can cut both ways. That is to say, if Modi can win, he can lose. Or, someone else in his place, later on, could lose as much as he could win in his time, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha will be held on March 26 to fill the seats of 55 members from 17 states who will be retiring in April 2020, the Election Commission of India stated on Tuesday.
All 41 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Telangana were elected unopposed on Friday after the biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently.
Uddhav Thackeray, his son and Maharashtra tourism minister Aaditya Thackeray figured in the list of campaigners.
Electioneering ended in Madhya Pradesh at 6 pm except in Naxalites-hit districts of Balaghat, Mandla and Dindori, where campaigning drew to a close early at 3 pm.
Opposition leaders believe this entire plan has been put in place to ensure that Mamata Banerjee is kept out of office in West Bengal.
Amid confusion over the continuation of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren as an MLA, Governor Ramesh Bais on Friday went to Delhi, a day after ruling United Progressive Alliance MLAs urged him to clear the air over the EC's recommendation on the matter.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena faction on Monday approached the Delhi high court seeking quashing of the order of the Election Commission of India (ECI) freezing the party name and election symbol.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Gopinath Munde has stoked a controversy by his candid admission about spending Rs 8 crore on his 2009 Lok Sabha campaign, with Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil demanding that the Election Commission take cognizance and decide on whether to allow him to contest again.
While the responses of the candidates were predictable, depending on which side they belonged to, an interesting point slipped through when Rahul Shewale cited the Dharavi Redevelopment Project as a scheme that would add to Mumbai's importance. No big infrastructural project in Mumbai, he said, could be successful without the Centre's nod.
The CJI told lawyer Singhvi, "No, but status quo ante would have been a logical thing to do provided that you had lost the trust vote on the floor of the house. Because, then clearly you have been ousted from power based on the trust vote, which could be set aside. Look at the intellectual conundrum. You chose not to face the trust vote."
'The common man and especially civilised people of the state are not agreeing with what has happened and are extending their support'
It said even if the film is released on April 11, as claimed by the Congress activist, it will be appropriate for him to seek a redressal from the Election Commission.
The first bench refused to restrain the media, both electronic and print, from publishing the oral observations of the judges relating the role of EC in holding elections to four states and the Union Territory of Puducherry in the country during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The opposition demanded that the concert either be postponed or given permission after the BMC poll process is completed.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Wednesday said he aspired to become the CM of the state and also took a jibe at his 83-year-old uncle asking when will the Maratha strongman retire from active politics, as he appeared to be ahead in the numbers game for control of the Nationalist Congress Party after its vertical split.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Eknath Shinde-led faction if its move to go against the Shiv Sena party's wish to continue with the coalition in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) amounted to indiscipline leading to disqualification.
Shiv Sena leader Eknath Shinde could not have been sworn in as the chief minister of Maharashtra if the assembly speaker was not restrained from deciding the disqualification petitions pending against 39 MLAs, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday.
Election to fill up 55 seats in the Upper House of Parliament was to be held on March 26, but 37 candidates have already been elected without a contest.
The Thackeray faction on Tuesday claimed that voters were being paid to choose None Of The Above or NOTA option.
Instead of agitating, be ready for celebration, Maha CM Devendra Fadnavis said.
As many as 35 of 53 Nationalist Congress Party MLAs were present at the party meeting convened by Maharashtra deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar in Mumbai on Wednesday, party sources said.
As per the preliminary estimates, the BJP has significantly improved its national vote share from 31.34 per cent in 2014 to a new record high, while there appeared to be only a marginal change in case of the Congress from its 19.5 per cent score of the last elections.
Thackeray, who is currently not a member of either of the Houses of state Legislature, was not present at the Cabinet meeting where the decision was taken.
The fate of 961 candidates, including Union ministers Giriraj Singh, Subhash Bhamre, S S Ahluwalia and Babul Supriyo of the BJP and former Union ministers Salman Khurshid and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of the Congress, will be decided by about 12.79 core voters in the fourth phase.
Amid rising coronavirus cases in India, the government has asked people not to panic, saying no community transmission of the virus has been observed and there has only been a few cases of local transmission so far and that it is "not a health emergency" in India at present.
Nearly 4,800 elected MPs and MLAs will vote on Monday to elect the 15th President of India, with National Democratic Alliance candidate Droupadi Murmu having a clear edge over Opposition's Yashwant Sinha as over 60 per cent votes are expected to be cast in her favour.
Counting of votes will take place on May 15.
The Delhi high court on Monday stayed the Election Commission's show cause notice to ex-Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan asking him why he should not be disqualified for failing to give his true and correct expenses incurred in 2009 assembly polls.
Raut said the issue of passage of farm sector bills in the Parliament will have no impact on the elections in Bihar as the state votes "only on the basis of caste and religion".