'What worked for the BJP were three things: Hindu nationalism, religion and a silent but strong anti-Muslim sentiment.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded two Congress turncoats and its former Union minister Vijay Sampla for next month's Punjab assembly polls as it released its second list of 27 candidates on Thursday.
The ruling Democratic Party will retain majority control of the United States Senate as two of its candidates are projected to win their pivotal races against Republican rivals, in a major boost to President Joe Biden in the second half of his term, both for his legislative agenda and his ability to appoint judges and other key officials.
On poll eve, both the BJP and the Congress claimed they were headed towards a majority and would form the government.
Raut said Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray was distressed over the defeat of Sanjay Pawar.
Kejriwal then said that though he had wanted party MP Bhagwant Mann's name to be declared as the chief ministerial candidate, the latter insisted that the people of Punjab should make this decision.
Polling began at 7 am on Saturday for 44 seats in the fourth phase of the West Bengal assembly elections amid tight security, officials said.
The row erupted after Purohit wrote a letter to Mann asking for details on the selection of government school principals sent to Singapore for a training seminar, saying he has received complaints of "malpractices and illegalities".
The main contest is between the BJP, which has ruled the six corporations for last several terms, and the main opposition Congress.
Sacking Ajay Mishra would further antagonise Brahmins in UP already upset with Yogi's government.
Here are some of the striking moments captured by Reuters photographers as United States voters went to the polls and the stories behind the images.
The notification for the President poll will be issued on June 15, the CEC said, and June 29 will be the last date for the filing of nominations.
After the Ukraine war, coke prices just soared and most units don't have money left to buy raw material. Customers are not absorbing the price escalation'
With their high-decibel campaigns so far, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party may appear to be locked in a direct fight in Uttar Pradesh.
All 41 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Telangana were elected unopposed on Friday after the biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently.
Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal, Randeep Surjewala and Jairam Ramesh of the Congress and Shiv Sena's Sanjay Raut were among the 16 candidates elected to the Rajya Sabha from four states where polling was held on Friday after tussle over cross voting and alleged breach of election rules delayed the counting by around eight hours in Maharashtra and Haryana.
Harmanpreet Singh won the men's Player of the Year award and Gurjit Kaur was recognised as the best player in the women's section. Veteran P R Sreejesh and Savita Punia won the best goalkeeper awards in the men's and women's section, while young striker Sharmila Devi (women) and Vivek Sagar Prasad (men) were adjudged best rising stars.
The voting will begin at 7 am and end at 5 pm after the electioneering came to an end on Saturday, 48 hours before the electorate begin casting their votes.
The Congress on Sunday announced that elections for its president will be held on October 17 with the winner being declared two days later, asserting that it is the only party in the country which undertakes such a democratic exercise.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Friday won the bypoll to the Champawat assembly seat defeating Congress' Nirmala Gahtori by a record margin of over 55,000 votes to retain his office.
This is for the first time in a Lok Sabha election that results of voting machines will be matched with slips generated by paper trail machines.
Maharashtra recorded the highest number of cases in the country under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in 2021 at 3,67,218, while Mumbai was placed second among major metropolitan cities in registration of criminal offences, according to a National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report.
While the polling so far has been peaceful, police had to open fire in the air in Purnia to disperse a crowd trying to disturb voting, even as people boycotted polling at 12 booths in Katihar in protest against barriers not being set up at two railway crossings.
The Trinamool Congress moved the Supreme Court on Friday seeking a probe by a court-monitored panel into the alleged large-scale violence during the municipal polls in Tripura.
As media phenomenon, Arikomban is in a different league. Efforts to capture the elephant were telecast live. Local three-wheeler drivers started a fans association for the pachyderm. A film has now been announced based on Arikomban's life.
The Lok Sabha election is the biggest democratic undertaking on Earth, with hundreds of millions of voters casting their ballot. Here are some astounding numbers to show just how massive this election will be.
Banerjee, who lost from the Nandigram constituency in the assembly elections earlier this year, has to win this by-poll to retain the chief minister's post.
Polling across 55 assembly constituencies assembly in nine districts got off to sluggish start at 7 am due to the cold and fog at several places.
The TMC had swept all the 16 assembly segments in Kolkata in the last election.
He has refused to concede the election, while the mainstream US media has declared 77-year-old Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden as the winner, who is now the President-elect.
'You can't pull down the nation's builders and architects to please the people in power.'
'Maharashtra governor did not do anything that was contrary to the Supreme Court's decision.'
Priyanka Gandhi said that biggest problem in the state is recruitment and the youth are disappointed.
"Keep the faith guys. We are going to win this," he said. "We believe we are on track to win this election."
The curtain came down on rumbustious electioneering over the last two months when assembly polls were also held in four other states - Goa, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Manipur.
India's official COVID-19 tally on Wednesday was 4,18,480 (4.18 lakh), the third highest in the world after the US and Brazil.
'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.
Two incidents of hurling of crude bombs were reported in Sealdah and Khanna areas of Kolkata, and police contingents were rushed to the spot to bring the situation under control, a State Election Commission official said.
To beat BJP, you either deny them a critical mass of Hindu vote or build a regional leader and party strong enough to protect their turf, observes Shekhar Gupta.
The Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat is hoping to make a clean sweep in the Dalit and tribal-dominated Sabarkantha district comprising four Assembly constituencies even as unemployment has become a major issue that the ruling party hopes to negate with Hindutva and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's charisma.
