Sports stars in Rajasthan and Telangana stepped out to cast their vote on Friday.
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.
Around 1.5 crore polling and security personnel, about 55 lakh EVMs and four lakh vehicles will be deployed for the polls, according to the poll authority.
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.
Over 60 per cent voter turnout was recorded on Monday in 49 constituencies in six states and two Union territories in the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections, with Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir recording its highest-ever voting percentage.
'A campaign that goes beyond caste, creed and religion.' 'This is a campaign that aims to end hunger in society'
A voter turnout of over 40 per cent was recorded till 1 pm on Monday in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections in 96 constituencies spread over 10 states and Union Territories amid incidents of violence in Andhra Pradesh and reports of poll boycott in some villages of Uttar Pradesh.
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.
Trump has repeatedly attempted to question the validity of vote counts in key swing states and made unfounded claims that the election is being "stolen" from him.
It will be clear whether the voters preferred the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao-led regime for a third term or the "six guarantees" by the Congress worked any miracles or the BJP's BC chief minister 'mantra' wooed the electors or if there will be a fractured verdict, by tomorrow evening.
That he hasn't done so yet, has continued to be active on the political street, in public debate and on social media, signals an important change. It will give his party hope. Maybe the achievement of reducing Mr Modi well below the majority mark will now motivate him to stay committed, observes Shekhar Gupta
Ensuring a free and fair electoral process is imperative for maintaining people's trust in representative democracy, the Supreme Court has said.
An ultra-violent film about violence, Kill's greatest accomplishment isn't its death count alone but to challenge our perception of violence, observes Sukanya Verma.
Counting of votes for the two Rajya Sabha seats from Haryana was put on hold on Friday after the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Independent candidate backed by it urged the Election Commission to cancel the votes of two Congress MLAs.
Many exit polls have kept the incumbent Bharatiya Janata party ahead of the Congress in what was a straight contest between two main parties. Assembly polls were held in the state in a single phase on November 17.
Members cutting across party lines demanded that an all-party delegation call on the prime minister to seek caste-wise census to determine the population of other backward classes.
Leaders and members of the Hindu community rue the fact that they are not given proper representation and many are not even registered as voters.
She asserted the Congress is united in Rajasthan while the BJP is completely fragmented.
"If you see in the context of alliances and statistics, then this is the strongest alliance government," Modi said while addressing newly-elected MPs and leaders of the NDA from across the country following his election as leader of the ruling bloc ahead of his government's swearing-in on Sunday.
Pronouncing the judgement, Justice Khanna said the court has rejected all the petitions, including those seeking resorting back to ballot papers in elections.
The US president mentioned that there was no "big blue wave" (Democrats) as pollsters had predicted, instead, there was a "big red wave" (Republicans).
The results for bypolls to seven assembly seats in six states will be declared on Friday in what is being seen as a major test for the opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance ahead of the polls in five states later this year and Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
Addressing party workers at the state headquarters after the poll results and trends showed a clear BJP majority, he said the 'misleading' campaign run by the Opposition over the past 2-3 days have been set aside by the people who reposed faith in the good governance of the BJP.
'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.'
It also ordered prosecution of the returning officer for the poll, Anil Masih, a BJP leader, for his 'misdemeanour', after finding serious faults in the conduct of the January 30 election.
The Congress said the ECI finally released the voter turnout data late last night after a completely unacceptable delay of 11 days for Phase I and 4 days for Phase 2.
Lok Sabha polls will be held in seven phases beginning from April 19 and the counting of votes will take place on June 4 for the world's biggest election exercise in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will bid for a third consecutive term.
In the battle for 2024, the place is hogging the limelight, primarily because of Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, who according to some opinion polls, may turn out to be the dark horse when votes are counted on June 4.
The Election Commission will announce the schedule for the Lok Sabha polls on Saturday.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
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 hapless voters fervently hope that they get to make a more equal choice in the next election and political discourse in the country becomes positive and more enlightened. One wonders if the masses would become more politically aware to discern good intent and performance from gimmickry, notes Biswajit Dasgupta.
Akhilesh Yadav's stock rose dramatically on Tuesday with his Samajwadi Party cutting the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party down to size in Uttar Pradesh.
Electoral setbacks and thwarted ambition can have an unpredictable effect on leaders,, observes Aditi Phadnis.
Bihar Chief Electoral Officer H R Srinivasa said the Election Commission has established a three-tier security system for strong rooms (housing the electronic voting machines) and the counting centres. The inner core is being guarded by the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), then there is the Bihar Military Police (BMP) and then the district police, he told reporters.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Friday said his party would pull off a spectacular victory in the state assembly elections, but evaded a direct reply to a question whether he would be the chief minister for the fifth time, as he just said 'Bharatiya Janata Party Zindabad'.
As we eagerly wait to see what 'farq' it makes when it hits the screens on June 28, Sukanya Verma looks at the few occasions caste came up in Hindi movies.
The electoral exercise, the first since the Lok Sabha elections, will decide the fate of many veterans and some debutantes including Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife Kamlesh Thakur.
"The voting percentage is likely to go upwards when reports from all polling stations are obtained as polling is scheduled till 6 pm in many constituencies. Final figures will be known on Saturday after the scrutiny of form 17A," the EC said.
'What's sad today is that there are so many people who cannot find work, not because the country is devoid of that opportunity, but because we are not doing enough in the country.'
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