After a spirited eight-hour debate in which 60 members participated, the Lok Sabha passed the Constitution (128th Amendment) Bill, with 454 members voting in favour and two against it.
On one hand, South Indian states have been complaining about denial of a proportionate portion of the sharable funds from the Centre, based on population. On the other hand, they stand to lose Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha seats that again are based on population, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The changing of names was part of the delimitation exercise, under which the number of wards went up to 80 in Gorakhpur, with several of these named after iconic personalities and freedom fighters.
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.
Polling is scheduled in all 20 seats of Kerala, 14 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, 13 seats in Rajasthan, eight seats each in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, six seats in Madhya Pradesh, five seats each in Assam and Bihar, three seats each in Chhattisgarh and West Bengal, and one seat each in Manipur, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir.
Shah said the ULFA, the oldest insurgent group of Assam, agreed to abjure violence, disband the organisation and join the democratic process.
Eight Union ministers, two former chief ministers and one ex-governor are among those who are set to test their electoral fate in the first phase of elections on April 19 when 102 seats across 21 states and Union territories will go to polls.
Actor-politician Kamal Haasan on Wednesday said discussions were on for his party Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM)'s political alliance and stressed it would support any bloc that would 'selflessly' think about the nation but desist from being part of 'feudal politics'.
He claimed that out of 90 secretaries of the government of India, only three are from the Other Backward Classes and control only five per cent of the Budget, which he said was an "insult" to the backward classes.
With the total number of municipal wards set to be revised following the passage of the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill-2022 in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, experts have said that the civic polls in New Delhi is unlikely to take place before a year from now as a fresh delimitation exercise will be required.
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey carried out a review and directed the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Electoral Officer to map the redrawn assembly constituencies.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday declared 13 candidates from Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha polls including actor Arun Govil, who played Lord Ram in popular TV serial Ramayan, from Meerut, while replacing sitting MP Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit with state minister Jitin Prasada.
The passage of the women's reservation bill has ignited hope among stakeholders about attaining gender equality in India's political landscape, especially at the policy-making level, even as some raised concerns over its effectiveness given the uncertainty in the deadline for its implementation.
Former MLA Ram Dayal Uikey, the BJP nominee from Pali-Tanakhar seat in Korba district, was present in the vehicle when the cash was seized from there, the police official said.
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 Monday upheld the government's decision to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution, which bestowed a special status on the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, and said steps should be taken to conduct the election to the Assembly in the Union Territory by September 30 next year.
The big surprise is that Narendra Modi, the greatest conjurer in our national politics, has not yet presented a theme to this election, observes Shekhar Gupta.
National Conference (NC) vice president Omar Abdullah Friday challenged the Bharatiya Janata Party to contest Lok Sabha polls in the Kashmir Valley, saying he will quit politics if the national party's candidates do not lose their security deposits.
Deriving from Narendra Modi's continuing charisma, the proposed scheme, if and when implemented, can cut both ways. That is to say, if Modi can win, he can lose. Or, someone else in his place, later on, could lose as much as he could win in his time, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Voters include 8.4 crore men, 8.23 crore women and 11,371 from third gender. There are as many as 35.67 lakh first time voters, besides 3.51 crore young voters in the age group of 20-29 years.
Among the keenly watched contests are those involving former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (Kannauj, UP) and Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai, Bihar), Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur, Bihar) and Raosaheb Danve (Jalna, Maharashtra).
In some states, many women voters had enrolled themselves by their relationship with the male members of their family instead of providing their own names.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday blamed India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's "two major blunders" -- declaring a ceasefire without winning the entire Kashmir and taking the issue to the United Nations -- for the sufferings of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
While the major fronts, the CPI-M led LDF and Congress-led UDF have given three and one seat respectively to women, the BJP-led NDA has set aside five seats for their female politicians in the upcoming LS polls.
A bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar granted liberty to the petitioner to serve the advance copy of the plea to the standing counsel for the respondents.
'If Modi is re-elected again, we can forget these things for a long time.'
The Lok Sabha ethics committee has cited the threats India faces from State and non-State cyber actors to indict Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra for sharing her log-in credentials with businessman Darshan Hiranandani, noting that he has residency rights in Dubai and has close relatives who are foreign nationals.
The PM is seen as slipping up in confidence levels as aired by his 'exposure' of the BRS on a crucial issue as alliance negotiations, which is not done under normal circumstances, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
It is crucial to electoral democracy that the exercise of freedom to vote is not subject to undue influence, the Supreme Court said on Thursday while striking down as unconstitutional the electoral bonds scheme for political funding.
The elections in the country should be held within the stipulated time of 90 days after the dissolution of the National Assembly.
Jammu and Kashmir has been without an assembly since November 2018 when the then legislative assembly was dissolved by then Governor Satya Pal Malik after the People's Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government fell apart earlier that year.
The Supreme Court Wednesday directed the Maharashtra State Election Commission to notify the programme for local bodies elections within two weeks.
'The general elections in May 2024 may not have any impact on the Census.'
Assuming we still have a Modi-led majority government after May 2024, there is no guarantee that reforms will move at anything more than a snail's pace, though we must be thankful even for that, notes R Jagannathan.
'...for three hours to the seven or eight of us who spoke at the meeting.' 'Talking together and allowing us to express our thoughts on these important issues is a good beginning.'
The court agreed to re-constitute a five-judge bench to hear pleas after summer vacation.
The Karnataka State Election Commission on Tuesday told the high court of Karnataka that the state government had taken away its powers, making it unable to hold elections to zilla panchayat and taluk panchayats as mandated by the Supreme Court.
A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Election Commission and the government for holding early assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir.
The BMC election will hold the key to a new shift in political power -- not just in Mumbai but in Maharashtra, reports Sarthak Choudhury.
Congress sitting MLA Saleh Mohammad, is hoping to buck the trend of anti-incumbency in the seat, and believes people will vote for his development work and not along religious lines.
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