Campaigning for the first phase of the Gujarat assembly elections to be held on December 1 ended at 5 pm on Tuesday.
The Commission, under Justice (retd) Ritu Raj Awasthi, would recommend an amendment to the Constitution to add the "new chapter or part" on simultaneous elections, the sources said.
"The voter turnout data for the first two phases of the ongoing 2024 Lok Sabha elections published by ECI on April 30 has been published after 11 days of the first phase of polling... on April 19 and four days after second phase of polling... on April 26.
There are 218,442 voters over 100 years on the electoral rolls.
Electoral bonds have been pitched as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties as part of efforts to bring transparency in political funding.
Polling for 58 assembly seats spread across 11 districts in the western part of the state began in the morning.
Gandhi, who is seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala, in a video appeal said this election is to save democracy and the Constitution.
Of the total 166 names declared so far by the Congress, 119 candidates will be making their electoral debut.
Five BJP MLAs and Apna Dal (Sonelal) legislator Amar Singh Chaudhary also joined the SP in the presence of Akhilesh Yadav.
Polling is scheduled in all 13 seats of Punjab and four of Himachal Pradesh, 13 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight in Bihar, six in Odisha and three seats in Jharkhand besides Chandigarh.
In the third phase of the Lok Sabha election on April 23, 116 seats spread across 13 states and two Union Territories, will go to the polls.
Samajwadi Party tops the chart of crorepati candidates and its nominees' average assets are also the highest compared to others with Rs 87 lakh.
Voting will be held on Thursday for the first phase of Gujarat Assembly elections in 89 seats spread across 19 districts in Saurashtra-Kutch and southern parts of the state where 788 candidates are in the fray.
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).
Assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Odisha will be held simultaneously in the first phase.
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.
The Congress is banking on decisions like reducing electricity tariff and fuel prices, taken during current CM Charanjit Singh Channi's 111-day tenure.
The last time a non-Gandhi was in the fray from the constituency was in 1998, when Satish Sharma, a close aide of Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, contested the polls but lost to the BJP's Sanjaya Sinh.
The SP chief said no MLAs or ministers quitting the BJP will be taken into his party anymore.
Joining hands with smaller parties with a political base in different castes was a part of the BJP strategy as it won big in Uttar Pradesh in the 2017 assembly polls and 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday made serious allegations against the Congress and said the grand old party has in its election manifesto expressed its intention to implement the 'Sharia law' in the country and redistribute people's property.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) is unlikely to attend a meeting of the INDIA bloc on June 1, sources said, as it coincides with the last phase of voting in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls.
The 9th phase of the Lok Sabha elections has 119 candidates, out of the 601 contesting, facing IPC charges registered against them.
"Let them show whatever they have got. We are winning with a majority," Akhilesh Yadav said, dismissing predictions to the contrary on some TV channels.
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.
Sources said Rahul Gandhi is likely to contest from Rae Bareli, but a final call is yet to be taken by the first family of the Congress.
Congress, the main Opposition party in the BJP-ruled state, had left the Khajuraho seat for SP as per the seat-sharing arrangement within the INDIA bloc.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday exuded confidence that people have voted in record numbers to re-elect the National Democratic Alliance government and said the 'opportunistic INDI Alliance' failed to strike a chord with the voters who rejected their 'regressive politics'.
His remarks come amid BJP ministers and legislators quitting the party in UP ahead of the crucial Assembly polls in the state.
Senior party leaders R K Dhawan and V Narainswamy are members of the committee, which has All India Congress Committee general secretary Ashok Gehlot as convenor.
A group of supporters stopped the vehicle of former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan outside the swearing-in ceremony site for the newly designated Madhya Pradesh CM in Bhopal on Wednesday, chanting slogans and expressing support with cries of 'mama, mama'.
While conditions have improved over the last decade in western UP, there are still unfulfilled needs.
Official sources said the CRPF commandos will be deployed for the security of Owaisi round-the-clock.
Former Uttar Pradesh minister Swami Prasad Maurya, who resigned this week from the Yogi Adityanath government and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the assembly polls, on Friday said that former state cabinet minister Dara Singh Chauhan will join the Samajwadi Party on Sunday.
Ending days of suspense, the Congress on Friday announced that Rahul Gandhi will contest the Lok Sabha elections from Rae Bareli, the constituency held by his mother Sonia Gandhi for the last two decades, and Kishori Lal Sharma, a close aide of the Gandhi family, will fight from Amethi.
The Bharatiya Janata Party faces an uphill task of repeating its performance of the last assembly election of winning 53 out of 58 constituencies in western Uttar Pradesh where polling will be held in the first phase on February 10.
Modi also alleged the opposition grouping will end the reservation given to SC, ST, OBC and give all of it to Muslims.
Sheela Bhatt and Sharat Pradhan bring voices from the ground in Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh, which is voting today in the first phase of elections
The BJP finalised its candidates for 172 assembly seats in UP and is likely to field both Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya who are currently MLCs.
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