A research organisation has described the electoral exercise as "money guzzler".
A day after a senior leader submitted his resignation from the Dravida Munetra Kazhagam demanding that M K Stalin be declared the chief ministerial candidate for the 2016 assembly polls, the M Karunanidhi-led party on Thursday accused him of indiscipline and suspended him from all posts.
Modi and Shah have finalised names for the Rashtrapati's post, which the BJP boss has discussed with the RSS chief.
The presidential election is due in July and the poll to the post of the vice president is scheduled for August.
"As far as the US is concerned, we have certainly reached a level of no return. In other words, we have developed today what we call a Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership. "We are cooperating across the board on areas that are of mutual interest to both our countries," said Shringla.
'If they really wanted to give him competition, the AIADMK should have contested the seat, not its ally the PMK.'
Harris, 55, is the first Indian-American to be selected for the second-highest elected office of the United States after that of the president. She is also the first-ever Black and first-ever African American to be nominated as a vice-presidential candidate by a major political party.
As the second phase of polling commenced on Thursday amid heightened security, bigwigs came out to cast their votes for constituting the 17th Lok Sabha. Among those who took to their respective polling booths were former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, actor-turned-politician Rajinikanth, BJP candidate from Bengaluru South Tejasvi Surya, and defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman, among others.
Maharashtra and Haryana voted in assembly elections on Monday. Several prominent personalities also exercised their franchise.
The Rs 89 crore question before Tamil Nadu now is what shape a central intervention would take, and if there would be any role whatsoever for acting governor, Ch Vidyasagar Rao, in it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
During campaigning, P Chidambaram has been addressing villagers, explaining his efforts to improve life in the constituency and blaming the state government for not supporting him. He has also been introducing his son in the 10 villages across 250 km.
Miffed over the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's "approach" towards finalising a seat-sharing agreement for the Lok Sabha polls in Tamil Nadu, the Communist Party of India - Marxist and the Communist Party of India on Thursday called off their month-old alliance with the Jayalalithaa-led party.
Santosh, an RSS 'pracharak' working in the BJP since 2006, is considered an ideologue who is equally well-versed with the dynamics of electoral politics.
However, the tilting factor still remains: Can the rivalling 'Modi brand' of 'soft Hindutva' and 'hard-sell nationalism' garner more votes for the NDA in Tamil Nadu, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
The BJP has the maximum number of such politicians.
The fact remains that in the present-day Tamil Nadu, GenX and GenY voters, born and/or growing up after the end of 'Kamaraj rule' in the '60s and 'MGR rule', respectively, constitute an absolute majority of the electorate. If they still vote for a Rajini or Kamal, in preference to the established 'Dravidian voters', it is despite the MGR imagery, not because of it, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Second-line AIADMK leaders and cadres alike say that by starting the talks first with the BJP and committing the party to an alliance without discussing seat-sharing, the leadership might have commenced the coalition discourse at the wrong end. According to them, even 20 seats for the BJP may be too many, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Speaking to around 60 journalists in three different sittings, the Congress vice-president, who is known to be media shy when it comes to his personal life, has opened up on a range of topics.
Political observers are keen to see if the BJP will now be guided by its more firmly entrenched ideological dominance in picking a face solidly identified with its core planks, or if it will choose a person tilted more to its electoral calculations. Or, whether its pick will be an ode to its core supporters or a outreach to relatively new groups of votaries.
'After the Congress's 2014 Lok Sabha debacle, commentators identified three major shortcomings: Leadership, organisation, and ideology.' 'Here we are six years later -- and what are the Congress's major failings? Leadership, organisation, and ideology.' 'The party seems to have learned very little during its six years in the Opposition wilderness.'
The conspiracy theory about Harris started following a Newsweek Op-Ed by Dr John Eastman, who ran in the Republican primary to be California's attorney general in 2010. Trump did not give his opinion on it but acknowledged that he has heard about such claims circulating on social media that Harris is not eligible to be the president of the United States.
Analysis of conversations on Facebook regarding the assembly polls shows that BJP featured in 61 per cent of them, while TMC chief Mamata Banerjee was the most discussed leader.
Calculated or otherwise, if Azhagiri's firing of the first salvo after Karunanidhi's death does not create some space for him to politico-electorally exploit at a later date, there may not be any space left for him at all, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's Sasikala faction on Thursday said the presence of two leaves symbol, frozen by the Election Commission ahead of the April 12 RK Nagar assembly byelection, on its website was 'unnoticed' and would be removed.
In a shake up ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan resigned on Saturday from the Union Council of Ministers and more may be in line for being drafted into party work.
'Last night someone threw stones at my house at 11 pm. My car was also smashed.'
The new chief minister, if from the Congress, will have little or no time for political administration, to ensure that he does not lose the voter's goodwill even before the Lok Sabha polls. He can count only on one thing. That the BJP may not want to upset him too early lest an early failure should become an added problem for the party in all the polls to follow, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Probodh Panda and Atul Kumar Anjaan are among 39 candidates declared by the Communist Party of India for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls as the party said that it would fight on 60 seats in 24 states.
Counting of votes is underway for four Lok Sabha and eight assembly Constituencies, spread across six states and one Union Territory where by-elections were held on Saturday.
Leading think tank discusses a likely Narendra Modi government and America's engagement with the man US once scorned. Aziz Haniffa reports
There is nothing to suggest that the DMK stands to gain from the AIADMK split nor is there anything indicative of an extraordinary advantage for the BJP, independently or in the company of the AIADMK, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
Emerging from a "consultative" meeting chaired by Chief Minister E K Palaniswami, Finance Minister D Jayakumar declared that the "unanimous" decision was taken in tune with the aspirations of the party cadres and people.
Two decisions handed down by the Supreme Court have spread gloom in Kerala as they have shaken two basic faiths of a majority of the people in the state, says T P Sreenivasan.
For the Congress to be taken seriously, it has to convince those around it that it could actually double its Lok Sabha seat share from the existing 52, and vote-share by a third more from the stagnating 20 per cent in 2014 and 2019, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Modi said this government will offer all 'sahyog' to Kovind.
Bharatiya Janata Party's Subrmanian Swamy and Congress' Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday came out in unison to assail the criminal defamation law before the Supreme Court which said that lodging of cases for political speech and debates under the controversial provisions should be avoided.
Is anyone in the BJP listening -- to what Nitin Gadkari had to say, but possibly left unsaid? asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
What will a split in the AIADMK mean for Tamil Nadu?
'He can install OPS as chief minister and ask him to do the floor test later.'
Former Board of Control for Cricket in India president Jagmohan Dalmiya's widow Chandralekha, on Saturday, said she has been 'deeply hurt' by the Supreme Court's observations on her late husband during the hearing on Justice R M Lodha-led committee recommendations to revamp cricket.
