Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, and Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar supremo Sharad Pawar were among the famous faces who queued up at the polling booths on Tuesday to caste their votes in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
Rahul Gandhi may also contest from Amethi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from Rae Bareli, a seat which was previously held by Sonia Gandhi.
Mizoram will be voting for total 40 seats in a single phase while polls in Chhattisgarh (90 seats) will be conducted in two phases on November 7 (20 seats) and remaining 70 seats on November 17.
The Congress this time won six of the 10 seats reserved for the SC category, one less than in 2018.
Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh said like other states, the BJP started the game of using money power, power of the government and muscle power to destabilise the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh but has failed.
The sources said that Priyanka Gandhi remained in constant touch with the party president, the chief minister, ministers and all important leaders, and did not allow any laxity.
It was one of the key promises made by the Congress ahead of the 2018 assembly polls, following which the party returned to power in the state after a gap of 15 years.
As political winds stir in these states, it's prudent to assess their economic landscapes.
Prima facie, the bus driver could not clearly see the stationary truck parked on the roadside due to heavy rainfall, as a result of which the bus rammed into it from the rear side, he said.
Talking to reporters in Bilaspur town of the state, he also accused the saffron party of trying to take political advantage of last week's communal violence in Biranpur village of Bemetara district.
Though electoral verdicts have historically been accepted, even though grudgingly, by all parties, there has been a sharper edge to the questions being raised by Opposition parties this time over the polling process, including the Election Commission.
The analysis of five candidates could not be completed as their affidavits are either badly scanned or complete affidavits are not uploaded on the Election Commission of India website, they said.
The voting for Madhya Pradesh's all 230 assembly seats was held on Friday, November 17, while Chhattisgarh voted in the second phase of the election.
In its complaint against Shah, the Congress told the EC that the home minister claimed in a speech in Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon on October 16 that "...Bhupesh Baghel's government, for appeasement politics and vote bank politics, lynched Chhattisgarh's son Bhuneshwar Sahoo and got him killed..."
Vishnu Deo Sai, a prominent tribal face of the Bharatiya Janata Party, will be the next chief minister of Chhattisgarh where the saffron party returned to power after a gap of five years following the recently-concluded assembly polls.
Here is the complete list of ministers in Modi 3.0 and their portfolios:
The states and union territories where the elections are being held in this phase are Assam (4), Bihar (5), Chhattisgarh (7), Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (2), Goa (2), Gujarat (25), Karnataka (14), Maharashtra (11), Madhya Pradesh (8), Uttar Pradesh (10) and West Bengal (4). The BJP has bagged the Surat seat unopposed.
Ghanshyam Sahu, a resident of Uparwara of Durg, sold two acres of land to invest the proceeds in a chit fund company, only to realise he had been duped. Like hundreds others, Sahu had given up hope of getting the money back. So when he received Rs 9 lakh from the state government last month, he couldn't believe his luck. "I did not expect the money to be recovered," he candidly told Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel at an event in January.
Voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will be held on Friday for 88 seats in 13 states with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala.
With the second list, the total number of candidates declared by the Congress went up to 83 out of the total of 90.
Interacting with the media at Brussels Press Club in Brussels, Gandhi said the government's action tells about its thinking.
Among the bigwigs are Union ministers Amit Shah (Gandhinagar), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).
The Congress leadership on Friday held separate meetings to review its performances in the assembly polls in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, and said its defeat in the two states at the hands of the BJP was unexpected.
Rahul Gandhi said that instead of getting involved in the Sanatan dharma row, the leaders should focus on the poor and their issues as they have been the party's traditional vote bank, the sources said.
Prime Minister Modi saluted the Indian contingent as it passed the dais where Macron, he and other dignitaries were seated.
'Rather than criticising the kind of candidates fielded by political parties from our living rooms, NOTA in a sense implores the electorate to say this by turning up in person at a polling booth to ensure their protest is registered.'
'Every Indian who is concerned about the unity, integrity and the map of India should be worried about this growing divide.'
As trends indicated a comfortable win for the grand old party in Himachal Pradesh, Shukla said the party was happy that it is getting an opportunity to form the government in the state and asserted that the party will do everything to fulfill the 10 guarantees made to the people of the state and would provide better governance to people.
Counting of votes will be held on Sunday in assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Telangana in what is seen as a semi-final contest ahead of the general elections in less than six months.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and the tribal face of the party, Vishnu Deo Sai, on Wednesday took oath as the chief minister of Chhattisgarh, 10 days after the saffron party returned to power after a gap of five years by unseating Congress in the assembly elections.
The party's decision to announce the first list of candidates so early underlines the significance it has attached to five state elections, the last round of assembly contest before the all-important Lok Sabha polls.
'Rahul should have learnt so much in the last 20 years. But give him a mic and he begins to talk without thinking about its consequences.'
He was administered the oath of office by Governor Rajendra Arlekar at the Raj Bhavan in Patna.
The stakes are significant for the BJP in this round as the party had in 2019 won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, that will go to polls on May 7.
The satyagraha will begin at 10 AM and end at 5 PM on Sunday.
The scam-ridden Congress government in Chhattisgarh has become a model of misrule and people have decided to root it out in the upcoming assembly elections, he said.
The Congress is sending Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, senior leaders Bhupinder Hooda and Rajeev Shukla to Himachal Pradesh on Thursday with the possibility of the party getting a majority in the hill state.
A voter turnout of 60.19 per cent was recorded till 5 pm in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections in 93 constituencies spread over 11 states and Union Territories on Tuesday with sporadic incidents of violence in West Bengal.
Kharge also targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the people should not believe Modi's "guarantees".
Singh Deo will, however, remain the minister for Health and Family Welfare, Medical Education, Twenty Point Implementation and Commercial Tax departments.
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