Nearly Rs 3,400 crore (Rs 34 billion) in cash and other items were seized in the elections in 2022-2023, an increase of 835 per cent over 2017-2018.
Despite Dharavi being located in the Mumbai North Central constituency and Mahalaxmi Racecourse in South Mumbai, the issues have caught the attention of all parties and their candidates.
2019 was the Bharatiya Janata Party's breakout year, when it stretched the boundaries of what was thought possible and ended up with 303 seats on its own steam. Now it is forced to play defence, on a pitch queered by too many variables, asserts Prem Panicker.
Rule of law prevents a government, brought to power by the strength of ballots, from betraying the trust of citizens and "lapsing into a government of caprice, nepotism and finally despotism", the Supreme Court said on Thursday.
'Mayawatiji no more controls the bahujan vote in UP.' 'In this election more than 40 per cent of the BSP's core voters blessed the SP without the SP even asking for it.'
The Congress had won over 400 seats in the 1984 Lok Sabha election after which Rajiv Gandhi became the prime minister.
'There might be some internal tussles that can be expected between any two persons in any party.' 'But I do not see any tussle which might weaken the possibility of dictatorship.'
The Law Commission is working on a formula to synchronise all assembly polls by extending or reducing the tenure so that all state elections can be held along with the Lok Sabha polls 2029 onwards, sources said on Friday.
Development economist Jean Dreze said the Indian democracy is currently navigating a crisis that is not only limited to the 'recent wave of authoritarianism' but also suppression of opposition voices by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Polling for assembly polls is underway in Meghalaya and Nagaland, northeastern states the Bharatiya Janata Party rules in alliance with regional powers.
In its complaint against Shah, the Congress told the EC that the home minister claimed in a speech in Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon on October 16 that "...Bhupesh Baghel's government, for appeasement politics and vote bank politics, lynched Chhattisgarh's son Bhuneshwar Sahoo and got him killed..."
In an accompanying vision statement, the former finance minister highlighted his track record of serving in the Cabinet, helping to steer the economy through the toughest of times with the COVID pandemic.
The country has got its first firm order to export these machines to Namibia, while it is in talks with others, including Egypt and Saarc nations.
The BJP often forgets that in Dravidian Tamil Nadu, the voter does not mix religion, which is personal, and politics that is in the public sphere, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
For the first time in his political career, he failed to carry his party to even a working majority -- and again, for the first time in his career, he finds himself in a situation where he cannot rule by dictatorial fiat, points out Prem Panicker.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com does a deep dive into four elections when Narendra Modi resorted to anti-Muslim fervour and points out that Hindu-Muslim politics does not necessarily mean victory for the BJP.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday told the Delhi high court that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, arrested in a money laundering case linked with the alleged excise scam, cannot claim "immunity" from arrest on the ground of upcoming elections as law is applied equally to him and an aam aadmi.
Devaswoms are meant to manage temples, not the faithful. Why didn't they simply stick to their set of responsibilities and execute it well and efficiently?, asks Shyam G Menon.
Let national interest alone be Narendra Modi's guiding principle, says Virendra Kapoor. No personal agendas, no divisive ideas and ideologies, no crony capitalist interests.
"I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected," she said speaking outside Downing Street.
As Karnataka gears up for D-Day, with most exit poll projections predicting a hung assembly while putting the Congress in the lead, the outcome will boil down to how the battle for some key constituencies play out.
In the last assembly elections in 2018, the state recorded a voter turnout of 74.06 per cent. The Election Commission has set a target of at least 75 per cent turnout in each constituency this time.
The ruling Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party are contesting the polls on a 40:20 seat-sharing basis.
Several Oppn parties linked the mandate to CAA and NRC, saying people have demolished 'arrogance' of the BJP, which attributed its defeat to local issues and 'internal strife' in the state.
Banerjee made it clear that she expected the seat-sharing formula to give priority to regional players in areas where they were strong.
The 14-year political journey of Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra has encountered both upheaval and elevation, as her expulsion from Parliament in a cash-for-query case marked the culmination of her tumultuous parliamentary term.
The BJP will enter this election, as it does every election, as if it is fighting to prevent a 2004-style defeat. This is a party that wins big because it always behaves as if its back is to the wall, predicts Mihir S Sharma.
'Kindling the private sector's animal spirits is more important than focusing on how government can give jobs on its own.'
It's great to win election after election on the strength of Modi's charisma and voter appeal, but the larger the Modi myth grows, the more the BJP diminishes, notes Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
In the coming days, unless Modi tones down the communal spiel, it will be clear that anxiety continues to drive his mind and clouds his judgment, observes Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
'If he has not achieved 'Congress mukt Bharat' even now, the question of his creating a 'DMK mukt Tamil Nadu' does not arise,' points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Rather than a blind reproduction of the government template, a more productive way of enforcing affirmative action in the private sector could be to emulate an American model, suggests Kanika Datta.
The people of Delhi have made a hardcore honest and working Kejriwalji win, Sisodia said.
'There is no hard evidence, but our MLAs have been getting calls from industrialists and mining mafia in the state to quit the Congress and join the BJP.'
Kharge termed the high-level committee constituted by the Centre to examine the feasibility of 'One Nation, One Election' a 'gimmick' and alleged the Modi government wants to slowly replace democracy in India with dictatorship.
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.
Sources said the report of the law panel on simultaneous polls is not yet finalised. They said "some more things are required to be done", indicating that the law panel will be invited again by the high-level committee.
While the ruling BJP, riding on the Modi juggernaut, wants to break the 38-year jinx and retain its southern citadel, the Congress is seeking to wrest power to give the party much-needed elbow room and momentum to position itself as the main opposition player in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The Election Commission on Tuesday ordered the delisting of another 86 'non-existent' registered unrecognised political parties, raising the number of such organisations red flagged by the poll panel for failing to comply with electoral rules to 537.
