The top court also directed the SEC not to declare those candidates who have won unopposed as winners.
Clashes were reported from several parts of Bengal, where polling is underway in the third phase of assembly elections, with Trinamool Congress candidates Sujata Mondal and Nirmal Majhi alleging that they were heckled and assaulted by BJP workers, a charge denied by the saffron camp.
With the creation of the state of Telangana, additions were made to ToRs of the 14th Finance Commission to make recommendations for the newly created states after the reorganisation of Andhra Pradesh.
The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea seeking stay on further sale of electoral bonds ahead of assembly elections.
The Election Commission has issued a notice to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her prima facie 'completely false, provocative and intemperate statements' against central armed police forces deputed on election duty in the state, saying her remarks are demoralising the personnel.
Prime Minister Modi said BJP's performance in Parliamentary, assembly and local polls across India over the last few days illustrated that people want all-round progress and will not tolerate corruption and misgovernance.
'The Bihar verdict has shown that the people of Bihar don't desire to go back to the mandir-masjid rhetoric.' 'Jobs, wages and development are the aspiration of the people of Bihar and we hope the next government will keep that in mind.'
Future Gaming of lottery king Santiago Martin was the biggest purchaser of electoral bonds at Rs 1,368 crore, of which nearly 37 percent went to the DMK.
The Congress plans to ensure that even if its candidates fail to register a win in the Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal, the benefit should go to the Left Front and not to friend-turned-foe Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress. Renu Mittal reports.
The BJP could surpass its previous best showing of 127 seats in 2002 when Modi was the chief minister.
We should work in unison to boost growth: FM
In a virtual no-man's land ever since India became independent in 1947, more than 9,500 persons living in 51 enclaves in Coochbehar district are exercising their franchise for the first time on May 5.
Who else do we know who meditated so with such impeccable timing (much of the Lok Sabha elections over and with only the last phase to go) and hordes for unsolicited defence of the grand meditation at public expense? asks Shyam G Menon.
The EC concluded that Banerjee sustained injuries due to lapse on part of her security in charge.
Droupadi Murmu scripted history on Thursday by becoming India's first tribal President in the one-sided contest, defeating Opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha.
Had it been an election of digital campaigns, the cost of the 2019 election would have been far less than what it actually is.
'The right to vote is the supreme right of democracy which is being executed through EVMs. No nationally or internally recognized institutions or governments have certified the EVMs as a cent per cent accurate. Despite this fact, by conducting polling using the machines in India, which is the biggest democracy in the world, the constitutional right of my vote is being violated. There is no guarantee whether my vote is cast in favour of whom I pressed the button through the EVM machine,' he said.
Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday said people of the country want change of power, but evaded a direct reply on whether his party would join an opposition alliance to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
I'm still in a lot of pain, but I feel the pain of my people even more,Banerjee tweeted minutes before arriving at the venue.
Complimenting West Bengal government for being extremely cooperative, chief election commissioner S Y Quraishi on Wednesday said all suggestions and instructions of the commission were being readily complied with in the poll-bound state.
When Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi's name was floated as Venkaiah Naidu's successor as vice president, the RSS instead suggested Jagdeep Dhankar, indicating that he was also Mohan Bhagwat's choice, states Prakash Bhandari.
The idle talk at street corners, cafes and public places since May 23 is that the winds of change are blowing across Bengal.
Later on while speaking to the reporters, Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said the BJP legislators were forced to stage protest as there was no mention of post-poll violence in the speech copy circulated among the MLAs.
The EC issued a show cause notice to CM and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee for allegedly violating the model code of conduct.
'The present generation, either due to historical amnesia or political propaganda, has been fed a narrative that paints India as an adversary rather than an ally.'
Addressing a press conference in London via Skype, the man, identified as Syed Shuja, said the BJP would have won Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh elections if his team hadn't intercepted the BJP attempts to hack the transmissions in these states.
The fate of 961 candidates, including Union ministers Giriraj Singh, Subhash Bhamre, S S Ahluwalia and Babul Supriyo of the BJP and former Union ministers Salman Khurshid and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of the Congress, will be decided by about 12.79 core voters in the fourth phase.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the state, told a bench comprising Justices Vineet Saran and Aniruddha Bose that whenever there is an allegation that a probe is not being carried fairly, the court takes the facts into account and then transfers the case to CBI after a prima facie conclusion.
Nearly 4,800 elected MPs and MLAs will vote on Monday to elect the 15th President of India, with National Democratic Alliance candidate Droupadi Murmu having a clear edge over Opposition's Yashwant Sinha as over 60 per cent votes are expected to be cast in her favour.
Alleging that the BJP-led Centre was pursuing 'vendetta politics', West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee appealed to the Union government to withdraw its order recalling Chief Secretary Alapan Bandopadhyay and allow the senior bureaucrat to work for people amid the COVID-19 crisis.
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.
The prime minister also launched a blistering attack on Banerjee, saying she did not care to express regret after a "leader very close to her" called Scheduled Castes "beggars".
The Election Commission's decision is "unfortunate", highly arbitrary, motivated and "biased" and was taken at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party, she said in the letter.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and party's candidate for Karimpur assembly bypoll Jay Prakash Majumdar was on Monday allegedly beaten up by Trinamool Congress activists at Phipulkhola area of Nadia district when he was entering a polling booth.
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
She called on all "progressive forces" to join hands to fight the "oppressive BJP regime".
Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the state governments have been asked to identify Rohingya refugees in their regions and collect their biometric details.
Observing that there are "definite and proved" allegations that complaints of the victims of violence in the aftermath of the West Bengal assembly polls were not even registered, the Calcutta high court on Thursday ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into all alleged cases of heinous crimes like rape and murder, while accepting the recommendations of a National Human Rights Commission panel.
'The over-reaction by the BJP to District Magistrate Pranjal Yadav's decision will prove a double-edged sword.' 'On May 16, if the BJP gets a handsome number of seats and if Modi wins from Varanasi and Vadodara, his opponents can repeat Modi's scathing remarks against the Election Commission, that it was not 'impartial'.'
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