As the Prime Minister hit the campaign trail in his Lok Sabha constituency, the Bharatiya Janata Party in Varanasi on Saturday charged the administration with "selectively" pulling down its posters in the name of implementing the poll code.
India's COVID-19 active cases count has decreased to 36,18,458 with a net decline of 55,344 cases being recorded in the active caseload in a span of 24 hours, while the daily positivity rate dropped to 16.98 per cent, the Union health ministry said.
Seen by political watchers as the favourite to retain power for a third straight term, the Bharatiya Janata Party has set itself an ambitious target of winning 370 Lok Sabha seats, a goal aimed as much at projecting its strength as at diminishing the opposition in popular imagination.
He asked Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and Home Minister Araga Jnanendra to show the 'guts,' shown by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath there.
This phase of voting was crucial for the state's ruling Samajwadi Party and main opposition Bahujan Samaj Party.
As the new year arrives, what is clear is that the BJP's stars continue to shine the brightest while its rivals' search for a way to dim their glow go on.
'Akhilesh did politics like Rabi and Kharif crop which come once a year. Politics is not seasonal, you have to harvest your field all through the year and only then you get a good crop' Political analyst lists 12 reasons why Akhilesh Yadav lost the UP elections.
A 27-year-old burqa-clad woman, who is an instant talaq victim, is campaigning for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls to make the Muslim women realise the "good work" being done by the saffron party in the state. Nida Khan believes that unlike other parties, the BJP does not see Muslims as a vote bank only but considers them as equals.
Uttar Pradesh police on Tuesday arrested Shrikant Tyagi, who was recently seen in a viral video assaulting and abusing a woman at Grand Omaxe in Noida's Sector 93 and was on the run ever since.
The fourth phase of the Lok Sabha elections will go to polls on April 29. The voting will be held for 71 seats spread across 9 states.
Noida was conceived in the 1970s and went on to transform the Western UP's landscape for good. Akin to the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (Noida), the Yogi Adityanath government has instituted the Bundelkhand Industrial Development Authority (BIDA) with its epicentre in Jhansi.
These include key constituencies held by Opposition parties such as Uttar Pradesh's Rae Bareli (Sonia Gandhi, Congress) and Mainpuri (Mulayam Singh Yadav, SP); Maharashtra's Baramati (Supriya Sule, Nationalist Congress Party); West Bengal's Jadhavpur (Mimi Chakraborty, TMC); Telangana's Mahabubnagar (Srinivas Reddy, TRS) and Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara (Nakul Nath, Congress).
Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party are contesting in all the 30 seats, while the Communist Party of India-Marxist is in the fray in 15 and its alliance partners of Sanjukta Morcha the Congress and ISF are competing in 13 and two seats respectively.
This classification of districts is to be followed by states and union terrotories till a week post May 3, when the second phase of lockdown will end, for containment operations.
The fate of 720 candidates will be decided by 2.28 crore voters
In nearly 100 seats, the BJP stands almost no chance of winning. In 200 seats, it is a direct fight between the BJP and the Congress where the BJP has an upper hand. In 243 seats, the BJP is pitted against regional parties and it is not going to be easy. That is why 400 seats may end up as a pipe dream, states Ramesh Menon, author of Modi Demystified: The Making of a Prime Minister.
Exit polls on Saturday predicted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will retain power for a third straight term, with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance expected to win a big majority in the Lok Sabha polls.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a two-day visit to Varanasi to inaugurate the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor project.
With this phase, election will be over in 424 seats and polling in the remaining 118 seats will be held on May 12 and 19.
In the Muslim community, views on this Lok Sabha election seem to vary, with some seeing it as crucial for India's pluralism while others feel neglected by political parties.
Karan Bhushan rejects the charges against his father, saying the "allegations are political and made up. We will challenge them in court".
'Unlike in the sporting arena, where sports federations moved from partisan to impartial referees, in Indian democracy's biggest festival, it appears we are moving backward from unbiased and objective to one-sided and partisan,' observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
People in these villages routinely encounter big cats that stray into their farms from the adjoining Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, a bustling habitat for the Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris).
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.
The force will provide security to the high court, district courts, administrative offices and buildings, Metro rail, airports, banks, financial institutions, educational institutions and industrial units. Members of this force can arrest any person without the orders of a magistrate or a warrant.
Of the total 166 names declared so far by the Congress, 119 candidates will be making their electoral debut.
Azad said Akhilesh does not want Dalits in this alliance, he just wants Dalit vote bank.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is considering fielding Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from Ayodhya as its senior leaders meet to finalise candidates for the assembly polls starting from February 10.
The VHP, in its letter to the state law commission, has not just cited policy's adverse impact on children, it also lists imbalance in communities as 'different communities respond differently to incentives or disincentives related to family planning and contraption'.
Writing his views in a separate verdict while concurring with the opinion of Justice Sanjiv Khanna, who was heading the bench, Justice Datta said the question of reverting to "paper ballot system", on facts and in the circumstances, does not and cannot arise.
The country is all set for the second round of elections on April 18 in the ongoing seven-phase Lok Sabha polls that will elect 543 members to the lower house of Parliament. Going to polls in the second phase will be 95 seats in 12 states and one Union Territory. Here is a look at some of the big names contesting in phase two of Lok Sabha elections.
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".
The nodal officer for EVMs in Varanasi, a returning officer (RO) in Sonbhadra district and an additional election officer in Bareilly district have been pulled out from election duties, a day ahead of the counting of votes in UP.
More than 3,000 gifts for Lord Ram from Sita's birthplace in Janakpur in Nepal have arrived in Ayodhya.
'The lack of a majority isn't the issue. He has enough in 240, especially as none of his allies can pull down his coalition.' 'That's why he's started as if this were just another, normal term. That pretence is vital for him.' 'The change for Modi 3.0 comes not from numbers, but from the new environment of contestation,' points out Shekhar Gupta.
Here are some of the big political leaders' who await their fate on Monday.
Here's the full phase-wise list of polling dates in all states and Union Territories.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
Lok Sabha constituencies that sprung a surprise in the 2024 polls.
Mohammadpur Umri, a small village in Uttar Pradesh near the Indian Air Force's Bamrauli base in Prayagraj, is called a 'village of twins'.
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