'I think of that young baby, still in her diapers, balancing with her arms held up by her mother, a Tamil woman wearing a salwar kameez and a dupatta, seated on a stoop,' recalls Aseem Chhabra.
Reacting to the results, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that in the by-elections held on 13 seats in seven states, the people of the country have given their support to the INDIA bloc.
Around 1.5 crore polling and security personnel, about 55 lakh EVMs and four lakh vehicles will be deployed for the polls, according to the poll authority.
'This is total fraud. You are showing me the slip of my vote but not counting it so this is fraud.'
"If you see in the context of alliances and statistics, then this is the strongest alliance government," Modi said while addressing newly-elected MPs and leaders of the NDA from across the country following his election as leader of the ruling bloc ahead of his government's swearing-in on Sunday.
'There is no link between Article 370 abrogation and a rise in voting percentage.'
They said there was "genuine concern" that if the present ruling dispensation loses people's mandate, the transition of power may not be smooth and there could be a constitutional crisis.
'Is the Agniveer scheme or their post-retirement re-employment in paramilitary forces or in the state governments the BJP's answer to the crying need on the job front?' 'Or, even Finance Minister Sitharaman's one-year internship scheme in the public and private sector, is it a permanent solution, either?', asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Congress had fielded Bam against sitting BJP MP Shankar Lalwani from the Indore Lok Sabha seat, where polling will be held on May 13.
Irked by his "bribe remarks" made at a poll rally on Sunday, Congress has moved the Election Commission against AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal demanding action against him.
To enhance transparency and verifiability in the poll process, the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 were amended in 2013 to introduce the use of VVPAT machines. They were first used in the by-election to the Noksen assembly seat in Nagaland.
A delegation of opposition party leaders on Friday met the top brass of Election Commission to raise its concerns over poll code violations by the ruling party leaders, and also flagged concerns over delay in release of voter turnout figures for the first two phases of the polls.
While Justice Kant and Bhuyan delivered the majority verdict, Justice Datta dismissed Ansari's appeal against the Allahabad high court order.
'How come the BJP won even in the Muslim belt? I am 100% sure that the BJP would not win in the Muslim belt.'
India has strongly rejected as "baseless" allegations of its interference in Canadian elections and asserted that the core issue has been Ottawa's meddling in New Delhi's internal affairs.
The National Conference is a part of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) and will continue to be, party leader Omar Abdullah clarified on Thursday and said it is in talks with the Congress for an arrangement in three of the six Lok Sabha seats in Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
The two notices, which have listed virtually similar wordings, say that prima facie the manifestos of the two parties 'have not substantially fulfilled the guidelines of the Commission'.
'ADR's success is its ability to remain non-partisan for a very long period, sheer professionalism and tenacity, and that makes it one of the good things to happen to our democracy.'
Kangana later apologised saying she didn't mean to hurt anyone, and it was a harmless joke about Biden being friends with the Dalai Lama.
The postal ballot papers were to be mailed out from Monday but are now expected to start being issued a few days later, with a delivery deadline set as next Thursday.
The judgment will impact a sizeable number of people in the state, according to a lawyer involved in the matter.
Under the scheme coming into effect from April 1, 2018, a donor could purchase bonds from authorised banks against cheques or digital payments. These would be redeemed only in the designated account of a registered political party.
Former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer M G Devasahayam, who was one of the signatories to the representation on the credibility of electronic voting machines (EVMs), voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) and the vote-counting process, had filed an application with the poll panel under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, seeking details of the action taken on it.
Putin received more votes in comparison to the 2018 elections where he bagged 76.69 per cent of the total votes counted. The performance of the other candidates was lower than that of the previous competitors of Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018, according to reports.
The Election Commission on Monday asked the Karnataka Bharatiya Janata Party to provide "verifiable and traceable" facts by Tuesday evening regarding its newspaper advertisement describing the Congress as "the most corrupt party in the world".
With assembly elections in Bihar likely to be held later this year, the Election Commission is dispatching four special teams of 'auditors' to the state on Monday for weeding out duplicate entries from electoral rolls.
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.
The multi-crore Dharavi slum redevelopment project involves no land transfer to the Adani group but to the Maharashtra government's departments, and the Ahmedabad-based conglomerate, as a project developer, will build houses that will be handed over to the same departments for allotment to residents of Asia's biggest slums, sources said. Denying allegations of land grab made by MP Varsha Gaikwad, sources close to the project said land parcels are to be transferred only to Dharavi Redevelopment Project/Slum Rehabilitation Authority (DRP/SRA) of the state government's housing department.
Amid allegations by opposition parties that the government was misusing probe agencies to target its leaders, the Election Commission on Tuesday asserted that while it remains committed to protecting level playing field and campaign entitlement of parties and candidates, it has not found it correct to take any step that could overlap or overrun the legal judicial process.
Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi on Friday said all efforts will be made to keep the electoral rolls in West Bengal flawless for the polls due next year.
If the concerns over risking political capital are overcome, the long-term gains for the Indian economy will be immense, asserts A K Bhattacharya.
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
The hapless voters fervently hope that they get to make a more equal choice in the next election and political discourse in the country becomes positive and more enlightened. One wonders if the masses would become more politically aware to discern good intent and performance from gimmickry, notes Biswajit Dasgupta.
A Delhi court on Tuesday sent to 10-day judicial custody NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha and human resources department head Amit Chakravarty, arrested in a case lodged under anti-terror law UAPA over allegations that the news portal received money to spread pro-China propaganda.
There may be those who could want to go slow, citing the large pendency of follow-up action and court cases that they would have to process and/or proceed with, before raiding more politicians, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The BJP's modus operandi is not just to be intolerant of dissent, it is to create mistrust and doubt between communities and the electoral process itself.'
Nayak had earlier resigned from the BJD and joined the BJP and got a nomination from the saffron party.
'If businessmen should be included in the political process -- which is essential in my opinion -- they need to have the freedom to express themselves and to take stands against the government of the day, without fear of reprisals and attacks on their business.'
Congress's Lok Sabha members Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tewari, Karti Chidambaram, Pradyut Bordoloi and Abdul Khaleque said this list must be made available in order to verify who is entitled to nominate a candidate and who is entitled to vote.
'Modi 3.0 will have more balanced policies like one saw in Modi's first term.'
