A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna, Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih told the petitioners, who pointed out that a meeting for the selection of ECs was pre-poned, to file a separate application pointing out the fact.
The other three crore -- nearly 40 percent -- will have to provide one of the 11 listed documents to establish their place or date of birth.
This is in contrast to a Supreme Court judgment of March which said the panel should comprise of the prime minister, the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India.
The Election Commission of India has announced that the Delhi Assembly elections will be held on February 5, 2023, with the counting of votes scheduled for February 8. The last date to file nominations is January 17, and the scrutiny of nominations will be done by January 18. Candidates can withdraw their nominations until January 20.
Pitroda was reported to have said that he does not understand the threat India faces from China, claiming that it is often blown out of proportion.
His tenure was till December 5, 2027, and he would have become Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) after incumbent Rajiv Kumar retired in February next year.
Members of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, including nominated members, form the electoral college for the vice presidential election.
Kumar said the increase was due to Outer Manipur being counted twice, since polls will be held there in two phases.
Kejriwal's remarks came shortly after the EC expressed dissatisfaction with his reply to its notice and gave him a fresh opportunity to explain his charges against the Haryana government.
'Today, the State looks at everyone with suspicion.'
The Awami League leaders were charged with committing crimes against humanity over the deaths of hundreds of people during last year's anti-government protests by a student platform. The protests resulted in the ouster of Hasina's 16-year-long regime on August 5.
Taking potshots at the Bharatiya Janata Party, some opposition leaders also wondered if Goel resigned to contest the Lok Sabha polls on its ticket like former Calcutta high court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay.
Thackeray had on Monday claimed his bag was inspected by the election authorities when he arrived in Maharashtra's Yavatmal to campaign for the November 20 assembly elections.
Voting for the Delhi Assembly elections began on Wednesday, with prominent leaders like President Droupadi Murmu, Union ministers S Jaishankar and Hardeep Singh Puri, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, and Delhi Chief Minister Atishi casting their ballots early in the day. Other notable figures who participated in the electoral process included Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena, Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, AAP leader and former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva, Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora, and Delhi Chief Electoral Officer R Alice Vaz. The election is a triangular contest between the ruling AAP, BJP, and Congress, with the AAP aiming for a third consecutive term. Polling is underway at 13,766 stations across Delhi's 70 assembly constituencies to decide the fate of 699 candidates. The results will be announced on February 8.
A new book by former West Bengal governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi claims that former chief election commissioner T N Seshan proposed an immediate halt to the general election process after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in 1991 and even offered to become home minister. Gandhi, who was joint secretary to then president R Venkatraman, writes that Seshan was the one who broke the news of the assassination to the president and arrived at the Rashtrapati Bhawan "super-fast" that night. According to Gandhi's account, Seshan told Venkatraman that he felt the election process needed to be stopped and that he was ready to take on the role of home minister if necessary. However, Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar and Cabinet Secretary Naresh Chandra assured the president that the situation was under control and that there was no need to pause the election process. Seshan's suggestions were ultimately ignored, but he did manage to postpone the second and third phases of polling.
"More voters were added in Maharashtra in five months between the Lok Sabha and assembly polls than in five years," the former Congress president said.
The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned the Centre over the procedure adopted for the appointment of election commissioners and asked how six names were shortlisted from 200 within a few hours.
Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir will be held in three phases from September 18 while Haryana will go to polls in a single phase on October 1, the Election Commission announced on Friday.
'There was no financing or even promise of finance involved in MoU, forget X or Y amount'
'The government does not want to be transparent or accountable. Therefore, they do not want to appoint information commissioners.'
A heated political battle erupted Tuesday over Arvind Kejriwal's claim of the Haryana government 'poisoning' the Yamuna water, with the Bharatiya Janata Party saying he cannot be forgiven for his 'dangerous statement', while the Aam Aadmi Party chief asserted he won't let the people of Delhi die due to the dirty, poisonous water.
Sources said the party has also tasked its senior leaders to be observers at the meeting of the Congress Legislature Party in Haryana to elect its new leader.
Besides disclosing in their affidavits, candidates have to prominently declare criminal cases they are facing, if any, thrice in newspapers in print as well on television, he said, adding that political parties too have to publish within three days of nomination why a candidate with criminal background was selected. "You (political parties) have to tell the public whether you did not get any (other) candidate and why was it necessary to select them (those with criminal background)," he said.
Meanwhile, the Congress' data analytics department chairperson Praveen Chakravarty on Tuesday wrote to Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, seeking assembly-wise voter rolls in excel sheet format for the Lok Sabha elections and the assembly polls in Maharashtra.
Aam Aadmi Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal went to the Election Commission's office in New Delhi on Friday and furnished his reply to the poll body over its notice to him on his 'poison mixed' in Yamuna water remark.
Several opposition leaders on Sunday criticised the bill on the appointment and service conditions of the chief election commissioner and election commissioners at an all-party meeting as "anti-Constitution" and "anti-democratic", sources said.
'Pakistan will also try to turn Bangladesh into a base for terrorist attacks on India.'
Pakistan's election commission has formed a high-level committee to probe the explosive allegations levelled by a senior bureaucrat that widespread rigging aided by the judiciary and the top election body happened against jailed former prime minister Imran Khan's party in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
The indication of a timeline comes two days after the Election Commission initiated the revision of electoral rolls in the union territory and prepare the draft rolls by August 31.
The Supreme Court on Thursday said it was mystified as to how bureaucrat Arun Goel applied for voluntary retirement on November 18 last year if he was not aware about the proposal to appoint him as an election commissioner.
The session is likely to see the proceedings of Parliament move from the old building to the new Parliament building.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the verdict is a victory of democracy.
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Justice KM Joseph said the concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity must not be "strange bedfellows" to the ruling class.
The Congress party in India has alleged "serious and grave inconsistencies" in the data relating to the polling and counting processes for the recently concluded Maharashtra Assembly elections. The party has sought an in-person hearing from the Election Commission to present evidence of alleged discrepancies, including the arbitrary deletion and addition of voters and inexplicable increases in voting percentages. The Congress leaders claim these irregularities benefited the ruling BJP-led alliance, which won a decisive victory in the polls.
The Election Commission on Saturday deferred the Haryana assembly poll date to October 5 from October 1, saying the decision was taken keeping in mind a centuries-old festival of the Bishnoi community.
The bench refused to entertain the plea filed by NGO Association for Democratic Reforms and dismissed it.
The None of the Above (NOTA) option once again found few takers, with 0.75 per cent of the electorate pressing the button in Maharashtra and 1.32 per cent in Jharkhand. Votes for the assembly elections in these two states were counted on Saturday.
Ahead of the Winter Session of Parliament, the government has convened a meeting of floor leaders of political parties in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on Saturday.
'If democracy has succeeded, it is largely due to perfect conduct of elections by election commissioners starting from Sukumar Sen to the present election commissioners'
'Unlike in the sporting arena, where sports federations moved from partisan to impartial referees, in Indian democracy's biggest festival, it appears we are moving backward from unbiased and objective to one-sided and partisan,' observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
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