Making a strong Hindutva pitch at the hustings in West Bengal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday attacked Trinamool Congress leaders for calling those wearing saffron, sporting tilak and choti as "rakshas", and declared that he does not believe in "seasonal faith".
Lavasa would soon be joining the Asian Development Bank as vice president
The Election Commission is considering advancing the polls by a month to avoid the May heat, reports R Rajagopalan.
The Election Commission on Friday issued a show-cause notice to former high court judge and Bharatiya Janata Party Lok Sabha candidate Abhijit Gangopadhyay for his 'improper, injudicious and undignified' remarks against Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for 'one nation, one Election' as recommended by the Kovind panel, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.
The poll-panel called these seizures by its various field and technical enforcement teams a "historic milestone" achieved "for the first time in any assembly electoral process", meaning during simultaneously-held assembly polls.
Never before in the history of the Republic has an election in the state mattered so much as it does now, observes Virendra Kapoor.
As the comparison between 2014 and 2019 shows, the voter turnout is not only lower than in 2019 but also lower than in 2014 in some of the larger states where polling took place.
The male-female turnout gap was wide in Bihar and Jharkhand. While in Bihar, the male turnout was 52.42 percent, the female turnout was 61.58 percent.
For renomination to the Rajya Sabha, Nadda will have to look for a seat outside his home state of Himachal Pradesh as the Congress is in power there.
A seven-year-old boy was killed and another child injured in a crude bomb explosion in Burdwan city in West Bengal on Monday, triggering tension in the area ahead of the elections amid a political war of words over the law and order situation in the state.
While addressing a rally at Alipurduar, Banerjee accused the Election Commission of removing the deputy inspector general of police of Murshidabad at the behest of the BJP.
In Nandigram, which was the cynosure of all eyes due to its high octane election, Bharatiya Janata Party star candidate Suvendu Adhikari on Sunday outsmarted Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee by a margin of 1,956 votes to emerge the winner in the constituency, the Election Commission said.
The two earlier visits in mid-January and end of January of the observers led to the detection of a huge number of false, dead and shifted voters.
"Not a single woman (from Sandeshkhali) has lodged any FIR. It was me who directed the police to lodge a suo motu case. Our block president has been arrested," she said.
If 74.9 per cent of NRI voters are from Kerala, Andhra Pradesh at 6.4 per cent, Maharashtra at 4.7 per cent, Tamil Nadu and Telangana at 2.9 per cent each follow way behind.
She is the 21st chief minister of West Bengal and 8th person to hold the office.
The IMD has warned of heatwave to severe heatwave conditions in parts of West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh during the next five days.
Voting was underway on Friday in 102 Lok Sabha seats spread across 21 states and Union territories in the first of the seven phases of the world's largest electoral exercise, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging voters to exercise their franchise in record numbers.
Poll violence has so far claimed two lives in West Bengal and left 371 persons injured in 398 incidents, the Election Commission said on Monday.
TMC's campaign in the seat in south Kolkata is already underway with the Election Commission announcing the by-poll on Saturday, following a request from the state government to avoid a constitutional crisis.
Banerjee, who was speaking to reporters at West Bengal's state secretariat, said that her party's name will remain the All India Trinamool Congress.
Claiming that at least 14 Bharatiya Janata Party workers were killed and nearly one lakh people fled their homes in post-poll violence in West Bengal, party president J P Nadda on Wednesday alleged that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's silence speaks of her involvement.
West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Friday said he would visit places in Nandigram, where post-poll violence was allegedly reported.
In a series of tweets, the Home Department of the West Bengal government said the Governor's act of making the letter public was "violative of all established norms, and disrupts sanctity of such communications".
While the two-phased assembly polls voting has concluded in Assam, in West Bengal two phases have completed while four more remain.
WC star Azad beats state BJP heavyweight Ghosh from Bardhaman-Durgapur constituency
Mamata Banerjee fended off a spirited challenge by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal with a landslide victory for her Trinamool Congress on Sunday for a third consecutive term and the saffron party and the Left Democratic Front were poised to form government again in Assam and Kerala respectively while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam stormed back to power in Tamil Nadu after a gap of 10 years.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said Narendra Modi should be referred to as a Bharatiya Janata Party leader and not as the prime minister in the saffron party's campaign as he is a 'caretaker PM'.
Voting is being held at 11,860 polling stations spread over 11 assembly constituencies each in Murshidabad and Birbhum, six in Malda and seven in north Kolkata.
The marathon polling process to elect the 18th Lok Sabha ended on Saturday with the seventh phase of elections witnessing an approximate voter turnout of 62.36 per cent, amid clashes between Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters in Sandeshkhali and some other parts of West Bengal.
INDIA bloc parties are set to raise issues such as the Pahalgam attack, US President Trump's claims of brokering a ceasefire, and concerns over electoral roll revisions in Bihar during the Parliament's Monsoon session.
The counting of votes will take place on November 2.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday offered prayers at a Matua temple in Bangladesh's Orakandi, the birthplace of Hindu mystic figure and Matua community's spiritual guru Harichand Thakur.
The West Bengal government on Monday reinstated its seven senior officials who were removed from their posts early last month on the directive of Election Commission, to their previous postings.
The Election Commission on Tuesday appointed special observers for administrative, security and expenditure monitoring purposes in several states to ensure a level playing field during the upcoming elections.
A rapid vaccination programme is needed immediately for the interests of health and well-being of all concerned, Banerjee said in a letter to Modi.
In its point-by-point rejoinder, the EC said Banerjee's letter regarding booth capturing and the presence of outsiders at a polling booth in Boyal was "preceded by a massive coverage all over the country.
As trends show a resounding victory for Mamata Banerjee and her party the Trinamool Congress in the state of West Bengal, opposition leaders have begun congratulating 'Didi' for her strong show in the polls.
"The Election Commission, in my opinion, is theoretically correct. But, it is also true that the Election Commission had directed the administration to transfer officials with administrative duties and post them according to its direction at the time when it was in charge of the election. "If offences had occurred as a consequence of the polls, it was also the duty of the Election Commission at least to direct or advise the administration to register the complaints which it did not," Justice IP Mukerji observed.
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