Rajeev Kumar, the Kolkata police commissioner, is known for his impeccable investigating and electronic surveillance skills.
In a country where 'booth-capturing' and open intimidation of voters used to be a part of the poll processes until not very long ago -- and remains a factor even now - postal vote can challenge the very credibility of the electoral process as a whole, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday said the government has no other option but to extend President's Rule in Jammu and Kashmir as the Election Commission wants to hold assembly elections in the state by the end of 2019.
Actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha, who joined the Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha election, lost to Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad from Patna Sahib constituency in Bihar by 2.84 votes.
'Like it or not, the Congress is still the only party with the potential to challenge the BJP at a pan-Indian level,' says T V R Shenoy.
Bhagwat also expressed concern over Bitcoin and OTT platforms and asked the government to take efforts to regulate these things.
Without doubt, the BJP is miles ahead in marshalling digital tools for electioneering better than any other party, observes Virendra Kapoor.
Measure each word you utter in public, advises Virendra Kapoor.
The elections in this phase are seen as a big test for the Bharatiya Janata Party
'Neither the Centre nor the state is helping us, rather they are coming up with new ways to create stumbling blocks for the return of money.'
While the common man is facing all these issues, those in power at the Centre are not ready to pay attention to these issues
They also demanded that if any discrepancy is found during VVPAT verification, 100 per cent counting of the paper slips of VVPATs of all polling stations of that particular assembly segment should be done and compared with the electronic voting machine (EVM) results.
In 2018, the BJP's rare successes in north-east India aside, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong for the party.
The combined vote share of the Left Front was also reduced to nearly 24 per cent from 41 per cent in 2011.
Given the politics behind it all, one possibility is for binding the governor to act according to the decisions of the state government and clarifying his position vis a vis bills and resolutions passed by the state assembly -- or, re-enacted if returned, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Lalpura, who took over as the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) chairperson last week, asserted that his priority would be to dispel 'false narratives' fuelling insecurity among minorities.
For now, the DMK can be expected to sound the bugle for Opposition unity at the national level, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Unfazed by the protests against the Act, Shah challenged protesters to oppose the legislation as much as they can. He also asked students who are opposing the legislation to read it properly and understand its meaning.
The Election Commission will for the first time keep a watch on the spending on social media by the political parties in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
'Balakot and Pulwama will definitely help the BJP, but it will still not help them to create a 2014 like situation or go beyond that.'
'ADR's success is its ability to remain non-partisan for a very long period, sheer professionalism and tenacity, and that makes it one of the good things to happen to our democracy.'
'No right thinking student of politics can name one state where the BJP gains in double digits.'
More than 750 constituencies spread across four states and one union territory will go to the polls on Tuesday
'If you compare Rahul with Modi, then Modi seems larger.' 'The campaign has been built to show that Rahul is not mature enough to lead the nation.'
Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Monday received a shot in the arm when Shahi Imam of Delhi's Jama Masjid Syed Ahmed Bukhari on Monday lauded her work for the minorities in West Bengal, and said she would make a better prime minister for secular India than others.
'There is no discipline here -- only autocracy. The state is not governed by any democratic ideology. Democracy has ceased to exist here.'
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Narendra Modi has expressed readiness for a probe by any government agency to be completed within 30 days into charges by Congress leaders that he had spent Rs 10,000 crore on poll publicity and offered to write to the Election Commission himself in this regard.
The SC asked Gujarat Congress 'why is it so late in raising question over the use of NOTA'.
Ambassador Venu Rajamony, who served as press secretary to President Pranab Mukherjee during his tenure, salutes the statesman and political legend, who passed into the ages on Monday.
Since when have elections become rocket science that you need to hire highly-priced specialists?And even if in the age of social media every party needs to present its best face, is Prashant Kishor the only one with such expertise, especially when his record is mixed with more losses than election wins to his credit? asks Virendra Kapoor.
Every political party loves to use the bait of loan waiver to woo the electorate. If their hearts bleed for the poor, they can always use the party funds to pay off the lenders, suggests Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
His margin was just a shade lower than the 6.96 lakh record set by Pritam Munde in October 2014 when she won the by-election to Beed seat in Maharashtra after the untimely death of her father and former Union minister Gopinath Munde.
The election commission had upped the expense limit for Lok Sabha elections from Rs 40 lakh to Rs 70 lakh per candidate in big states but a new report states that 537 MPs declared expenses of less than 50 per cent of the limit. Vicky Nanjappa/Rediff.com reports
Curtains came down on Tuesday evening on campaigning for 57 seats going to poll in the fifth and last phase of bitterly-fought Bihar assembly elections on November five, with acrimonious exchanges provoking showcause notices from the Election Commission to top leaders of rival alliances.
In a move that is bound to generate controversy, the election expenditure for both Parliamentary and assembly constituencies is likely to jump by one-and-a-half times before the coming Lok Sabha polls. Anita Katyal reports
If Uddhav Thackeray is fazed by the BJP's attempts to build a narrative against his government in order to bring it down, he is not showing it. He has fought against all odds to remain in the CM's chair and faced difficulties with a smile, reports Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'The TMC did not bother telling me, a sitting MLA for 20 years, why I was not being given a ticket.'
Opposition leaders plan to go to the people to create awareness, as well as protest the "erosion of RBI's credibility" in Parliament, in the coming days and weeks to build public opinion against the Modi government's move to take away the RBI reserves, reports Archis Mohan.
Any defeat for the BJP now would imply that anti-incumbency against Modi has set in, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was not aware of the Constitutional provisions allowing for declaration of Emergency that was imposed in 1975 and it was Siddartha Shankar Ray who led her into the decision, says President Pranab Mukherjee.
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