Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray on Friday said whatever the people of Maharashtra wish will happen, comments coming amid intense speculation over possibility of an alliance between his party and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena led by his estranged cousin Raj.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar assured Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he will remain in the NDA, while regretting short-lived alliances with the RJD-Congress combine. He lauded Modi for the Union government's measures for the state and highlighted recent state government initiatives.
Confusion prevailing in the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) showed little signs of let up on Saturday, with just two days to go before the filing of nomination papers for the second and final phase of assembly elections comes to a close.
The Election Commission defends its directive to verify the identity of burqa-clad women at Bihar polling stations, citing a 1994 order issued during T N Seshan's tenure.
'Are elections still fair in India, or are we all witness to a macabre style of 'selection' of lawmakers? The jury will be out on this for a long time because there is no definitive evidence on either contention, at least as yet,' notes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author, Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched his Bihar assembly poll campaign, asserting that the NDA under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will break all previous electoral records. He criticized the INDIA bloc and highlighted the NDA's cohesiveness and development efforts in Bihar.
People of Bihar wait with bated breath for Friday's counting of votes polled in the recent assembly elections, which will decide whether Janata Dal-United supremo Nitish Kumar, the state's longest-serving chief minister, will get a record fifth term or whether a change in government will be witnessed.
Shiv Sena leader and former MP Rahul Shewale said around 2 lakh people are expected to attend the rally at Azad Maidan to hear the CM.
Meanwhile, the Congress' data analytics department chairperson Praveen Chakravarty on Tuesday wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, seeking assembly-wise voter rolls in excel sheet format for the Lok Sabha elections and the assembly polls in Maharashtra.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
Like his father Karunanidhi and AIADMK rivals MGR and Jayalalithaa, Stalin would like to confine his real political work to Tamil Nadu, and not want to take after the late Congress leader K Kamaraj and take up a national role, even if to create greater political space for son Udhayanidhi, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Election Commission of India has set up more than 200 polling stations within housing societies in the urban areas of Uttar Pradesh to increase the voter turnout in the politically crucial state.
During the presser, Gandhi showed a picture of a woman who appears on the voter list 22 times in 10 booths in the Rai assembly constituency, and said this shows that this was a 'centralised operation'.
Opposition leaders saw the move also as yet another bid by Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav to impress Muslim minorities.
The new TDP government will have to mop up over Rs 10,000 crore to fulfill the financial requirements for July, a retired senior bureaucrat said.
This is important because he is to be seen as a sure winner before criss-crossing the state to campaign for candidates of the party or an alliance, highlights N Sathiya Moorthy.
This is the third meeting of CEOs after Gyanesh Kumar took over as the chief election commissioner in February. However, Wednesday's day-long meeting assumes significance as the preparedness of a pan-India SIR are being discussed, officials said.
The Election Commission of India is preparing for a nationwide special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, following a Supreme Court ruling. This move aims to update voter lists and address concerns about illegal migrants.
With all exit polls predicting a clean sweep for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the recently-concluded assembly polls, several leaders have started working overtime to deny the party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from walking away with credit for this victory, says Anita Katyal
Raut said a Congress-AAP alliance would have crushed the BJP in Delhi assembly polls, as counting trends show the Arvind Kejriwal-led party losing many seats amid the saffron surge.
In the first phase, a total of 3.75 crore voters will decide the electoral fate of 1,314 candidates, including top leaders such as INDIA bloc's chief ministerial face Tejashwi Yadav and Deputy CM Samrat Choudhary of the BJP.
'The move to appoint a person with a profile, markedly lower than the leader Nitin Nabin will replace, has the potential to put the brakes on the careers of several others in the party and government in the positions they currently hold,' points out Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday portrayed BJP's Kalkaji candidate Ramesh Bidhuri as a villain from the movie Bahubali 1.
Assembly speaker Sharingain Longkumer accepted the decision of the 21 NPF legislators to change party.
The Union Budget 2025-26 has allocated over Rs 1,400 crore to the law ministry to meet carry forward expenditure for holding the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and purchase of new electronic voting machines for the Election Commission. The allocation includes Rs 500 crore for the elections, Rs 300 crore for voter identity cards, Rs 597.80 crore for "other election expenses", and Rs 18.72 crore for new EVMs. The law ministry is the nodal agency for the Election Commission, polls, electoral laws, and appointment of members to the poll panel.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and several prominent faces among 676 candidates are contesting on 57 seats spread across 10 districts in the state.
A proposed polling booth reconfiguration in West Bengal has ignited a political battle, with the TMC, BJP, Congress, and CPI(M) raising concerns about bias, partisanship, and flawed processes.
Tharoor's recent remarks on Kerala's industrial growth sparked controversy within the Congress state unit.
A total of 2,208 booths in West Bengal are under the scanner after all the distributed enumeration forms were returned filled up, indicating that there is not a single dead, duplicate or untraceable voter in these booths, EC sources said.
'Now there is no fight between us (Thackerays); now the fight is with them.'
'The confidence of the Opposition will go up and alliances will be easier to form if it becomes apparent that the BJP is losing ground in the north of India,' says Aakar Patel.
The fifth and last phase of the state assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir ended on Saturday with a turnout of 76 per cent.
The Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court has issued a notice to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in a poll petition challenging his 2014 victory from the Nagpur South West assembly seat. The petition was filed by Congress candidate Prafulla Vinodrao Gudadhe, who alleges procedural lapses and corrupt practices during the election.
'If the BJP had contested all 227 seats, I believe they would have managed to secure a majority on their own.'
Shiv Sena-UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray visited MNS president Raj Thackeray on Ganesh Chaturthi, further fueling speculation of a potential alliance between the two parties ahead of local body elections.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi accuses the BJP-led government of stealing votes with the help of the Election Commission during a rally in Siwan, Bihar.
Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan criticized Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and RJD's Tejashwi Yadav for alleged abuses directed at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's mother during a political rally in Bihar. The BJP accused the opposition leaders of crossing 'limits of insult' with their remarks.
The stage is set for the crucial first phase of the assembly elections in Bihar on Thursday, as 3.75 crore voters will decide the electoral fate of 1,314 candidates, including top leaders such as Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance's (INDIA's) chief ministerial face Tejashwi Yadav and Deputy CM Samrat Choudhary of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Nitish Kumar is poised to lead the NDA government in Bihar, with key political developments unfolding ahead of the swearing-in ceremony. The article covers the election of the NDA leader, cabinet allocation discussions, and reactions to the election results, including Prashant Kishor's claims and the family feud within Lalu Prasad's family.
Kumar, who played a key role in implementing decisions following the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution in Jammu and Kashmir during his stint in the Union home ministry, took charge as an election commissioner on March 15, 2024.
