The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday announced Prime Minister Narendra Modi will fight again from Varanasi in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as it named 34 Union ministers in the first list of 195 candidates.
The EC has deployed 580 companies of central forces to man over 98 per cent of the polling booths in these constituencies to ensure free and fair polling.
The byelections are of critical importance to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who lost the assembly poll to Bharatiya Janata Party's Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram.
Several police officers who followed the Election Commission's orders during the recent West Bengal assembly polls get punishment transfers. Payal Mohanka reports.
By-elections to Lok Sabha and assembly seats in the states of Assam, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Tamil and West Bengal passed off peacefully on Saturday amidst tight security.
A high voter turnout of nearly 71 per cent was recorded till 5 pm on Saturday in West Bengal's four assembly constituencies where bypolls were held, an official said.
The two-member commission will be headed by former Calcutta high court Chief Justice Jyotirmay Bhattacharya. Former Supreme Court judge Madan Bhimrao Lokur is its other member.
The meteoric rise of Shajahan Sheikh from a modest background of a helper in a local transport company to becoming the so-called 'tiger' of Sandeshkhali is what Bollywood film scripts are made of. And so does his fall.
The full bench of the Election Commission will visit West Bengal on Thursday to oversee the poll preparedness for the last three phases of the assembly polls. Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi and the other two Election Commissioners V.S. Sampath and HS Brahma will arrive in Kolkata in the morning and hold meeting with the representatives of the political parties.
The notion that the BJP gained its increased tally by wiping out the Left parties and the Congress is completely misleading. Equally misleading is the belief that the TMC held its ground in all its existing seats. A little more than a fifth of the seats Mamata Banerjee's party had won in 2016 was lost to the BJP this time.
Banerjee scored a personal point with a massive victory in the bypoll with a record margin of 58,835 votes.
A delegation of Trinamool Congress leaders on Wednesday met Election Commission officials here and alleged that the use of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's photo on advertisements of various central schemes and the COVID vaccination certificates, distributed by the Union health ministry, violated the model code of conduct.
Invoking its Constitutional powers, the Election Commission on Saturday put in place certain restrictions, including extending the 'silence period' from 48 hours to 72 hours, for the fifth phase of polling in West Bengal after violence in Cooch Behar district.
At least four people, including two children, were killed and many injured in Dhaka on Friday when suspected arsonists set on fire a passenger train coming from Benapole, a port city bordering India, officials said, a day ahead of Bangladesh's general elections that have been boycotted by the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
'They do not want us to construct roads or to conduct health camps. I see no logic in their demands,' says West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya.
The first phase of the crucial panchayat polls in West Bengal will begin on Thursday even as the ruling Trinamool Congress kept up its attack against the State E1lection Commission.
The None of the Above option, like previous polls, had few takers in the assembly elections to West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry.
High voter turnout was recorded in most of the seven assembly constituencies in six states where by-elections were held on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission (TNSEC) to conduct by September 15 the local body polls in nine new districts carved out of four existing ones.
The EC on Wednesday reminded political parties about the bad effects of plastic and asked them to avoid using it for making banners and posters for electioneering.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the state government, pointed to the members of the committee that has been formed to investigate the incidents and said, "Can you imagine these people have been appointed to collect the data? Is this a BJP investigating committee my Lords?"
In a complaint to the Election Commission, the Communist Party of India Marxist on Wednesday alleged that Home Minister P Chidambaram and his ministry were trying to "portray" the Left Front as an "aggressor" in West Bengal, thereby violating the model code of conduct in place in the state.The party petitioned to the commission that statements being made by Chidambaram during the course of his campaign for the ongoing assembly elections.
The Trinamool Congress supremo said at an election meeting at Bhabanipur where she is contesting by-polls to be held on September 30, that she had been invited to Rome in the first week of October to attend a global peace meeting in which the Pope, other religious heads, dignitaries from various countries are slated to attend, where she would have been the only Indian and 'only Hindu lady'.
Various constituents of the INDIA bloc condemned Kejriwal's arrest and claimed that the BJP is scared of the outcome of the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and acting out of panic to create problems for the opposition.
According to the Federation of Resident Doctors Association, during the indefinite strike, all outpatient departments, operation theatres, and ward duties will be shut, but emergency services will continue to operate as usual, ensuring that urgent patient care remains unaffected.
Addressing her first rally in a district after being injured at the hustings in Nandigram, Banerjee said as long as she has her voice and her heart functions, she will continue to fight.
As per the preliminary estimates, the BJP has significantly improved its national vote share from 31.34 per cent in 2014 to a new record high, while there appeared to be only a marginal change in case of the Congress from its 19.5 per cent score of the last elections.
What makes Dhankar so outspoken? Could it because as governor he will be in the driver's seat if the Trinamool Congress performs below par in the elections next year? Shikha Shalini reports.
The Election Commission may cancel or postpone Lok Sabha polls in certain West Bengal constituencies if Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee refuses to abide by its order to transfer eight state government officials.
In a major boost to the party ahead of next year's Assembly polls, the Trinamool Congress on Saturday scored a landslide victory in the newly formed Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, bagging 37 of the 41 wards and winning all the 16 wards in Bally Municipalty under Howarah district.
The recently concluded assembly polls in the four states -- Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Assam and one Union Territory -- Puducherry saw a blatant use of money power. But interestingly, the newly elected members of Legislative have claimed in their expense statements submitted to the Election Commission that their expenditure was well below the prescribed limit.
There are 64 vacancies in the legislative assemblies of various states and one in Lok Sabha.
The Election Commission Wednesday decided to defer proposed by-polls to three Lok Sabha and eight assembly seats in view of the prevailing coronavirus situation in the country.
Top leaders of 26 opposition parties were arriving in Bengaluru on Monday for a two-day brainstorming session with a call for unity and are expected to chalk out their joint programme aimed at defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
This is possibly the last election in Bengal where two sides are squaring off against each other. Don't expect the BJP to be a bystander five years hence, says Devanik Saha.
Biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha will be held on March 26 to fill the seats of 55 members from 17 states who will be retiring in April 2020, the Election Commission of India stated on Tuesday.
The Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC), which contested the Goa Assembly elections for the first time this year, failed to make a mark in the coastal state.
A memorandum, signed by the chief ministers or finance ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry, Karnataka, Delhi, West Bengal, Kerala and Punjab, said the terms were disruptive and a cause for concern.
Election Commission officials said they have deployed around 680 companies of central police forces and over 20,000 state police personnel in over 53 constituencies of South 24 Parganas, Kolkata South and Hooghly districts going to the hustings on Saturday in the fifth phase of polling.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances