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.
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.
'Today, the State looks at everyone with suspicion.'
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
'The government does not want to be transparent or accountable. Therefore, they do not want to appoint information commissioners.'
'There was no financing or even promise of finance involved in MoU, forget X or Y amount'
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The session is likely to see the proceedings of Parliament move from the old building to the new Parliament building.
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.
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 bench refused to entertain the plea filed by NGO Association for Democratic Reforms and dismissed it.
'Pakistan will also try to turn Bangladesh into a base for terrorist attacks on India.'
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.
'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'
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.
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.
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.
'One of the principles of the MCC that you should not make hate speeches and create hatred between communities on the basis of religion was violated on a scale that was never seen before.' 'Religious symbols were very liberally used and speeches were made to polarise people on the basis of religion.'
'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.
The elections in the country should be held within the stipulated time of 90 days after the dissolution of the National Assembly.
Congress leaders were seen giving media bytes at various places at the headquarters, arguing that the trends would change by 1 PM but it did not happen.
Justice Rastogi asks Mehta if he thinks that in the absence of law, whatever appointments are being made in a process are appropriate.
Acting on complaints, the Election Commission on Wednesday ordered suspension of police personnel violating its guidelines on checking of voters and stopping them from casting votes in the Uttar Pradesh bypolls, officials said.
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Monday dared the opposition to share evidence of allegations that returning officers and district magistrates were influenced to vitiate the poll process so the panel could take action against them.
Addressing reporters at his residence soon after the meeting ended, Chowdhury said six names came up before the panel for the selection of the two ECs and the names of Sandhu and Kumar were finalised by a majority of members of the high-powered panel.
Rajya Sabha on Tuesday passed a bill to regulate the appointment and service terms of Chief Election Commissioner and election commissioners incorporating key amendments like retaining their status at par with Supreme Court judges, upgrading the search committee and inserting a new clause to protect them from court cases while discharging their official duties.
The bench said the petition has relied on a March 2 verdict of the apex court which had ruled that the appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner and ECs will be done by the President on the recommendation of a committee, comprising the prime minister, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha and the CJI, to maintain the "purity of election".
The assembly polls in Maharashtra will be held in a single phase while Jharkhand polls will be held in two phases, the Election Commission of India announced on Tuesday.
The elections will begin on April 19 followed by subsequent phases on April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1.
Besides the bills, the government has listed the first batch of supplementary demands for grants for 2023-24 for presentation, discussion and voting during the session.
Former foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, Kerala BJP leader C Sadanandan Master and Delhi-based historian Meenakshi Jain have been nominated to the Rajya Sabha.
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