Days after rules were issued allowing linkage of Aadhaar with voters list to weed out duplicate entries, the Election Commission has warned of 'severe' disciplinary action against electoral registration officers for any leakages of physical forms filled by electors to share their Aadhaar details.
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.
Responding to a question, Abdullah said elections can be held whenever the government wants.
'They forget that denial of basic rights has helped create a big political void which is adding to a deepening alienation.' 'This creates a fertile ground for extremist elements and targeted killings which we are witness to once again.'
'The failure of the ECI to follow the Registration of Electoral Rules and create verified and audited rolls or even verifiable and auditable ones, highlight that the entire electoral roll is merely a compilation of names without any effort or intention for completeness, correctness or fair play.' 'We are fooling ourselves by electing our representatives based on faulty electoral rolls that do not represent the people of the constituency. Elections based on these rolls are neither free nor fair. Democracy is under siege,' says Dr Anupam Saraph.
Although the Supreme Court has mandated the Centre to conduct the polls by the end of September, a spate of terrorist attacks in J&K could cause delays.
The CEC said the chief electoral officer of Assam will give a factual report in the coming week on various aspects arising out of the publication of the final draft NRC.
Rao is one of 19 observers sent by the Election Commission to the state, where there have been widespread allegations by political parties of irregularities in the voters' list.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday ruled out holding any dialogue with Pakistan and asserted that the Modi government will wipe out terrorism from Jammu and Kashmir and make it the most peaceful place in the country.
A significant enrolment of young voters in the electoral rolls has resulted in the unusually high voter turnout in the state assembly elections, Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath has said.
20 observers will visit the state to receive voter and political parties' feedback.
First came the Supreme Court's stay on Tuesday on the municipal elections on December 18, directing the state election commission to notify the election dates on February 18 after the electoral rolls are revised. The Uttar Pradesh government had challenged the Allahabad high court order fixing the elections on December 18.
Chief electoral officers will brief Lyngdoh on February 4.
'A robust electoral democracy provides the institutional basis for the generation and regeneration of political hope.'
The observers would submit a report and brief the Commission on January 18, the sources said.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi Tuesday appointed former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad as the party's campaign committee chief in the union territory, but he declined the offer.
Azad would be accorded a grand reception on his arrival from Delhi Sunday morning, and a procession would accompany him to the venue of the public meeting at the Sainik Colony.
Moving to overturn a Supreme Court ruling, a bill was introduced in Rajya Sabha under which convicted members of Parliament and members of Legislative Assembly cannot be disqualified immediately even though they will be barred from voting in the House and drawing their salary till their appeal is decided.
The next general elections would be held in multiple phases next year and be completed in time to constitute the 16th Lok Sabha by June 1, Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath has said.
Modi's inability to make peace with a renewed Opposition will only embolden his coalition partners and it is just a matter of time before they begin asking probing questions besides politely disagreeing with his tactics, predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The Election Commission on Tuesday deliberated on holding the assembly polls in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir before or after Dussera.
As many as 19.31 lakh applications have been registered so far as part of the ongoing summary revision of electoral rolls in Maharashtra and voters would have the opportunity to enrol themselves until the last date of filing of nomination papers, the Election Commission of India said in Mumbai on Tuesday.
Assembly elections in Bihar, where the Bharatiya Janata Party is set for a battle against a united Janata Parivar, are likely to be held sometime in September-October when extensive central forces and a reworked expenditure monitoring system will be deployed to curb money and muscle power.
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 poll holding exercise has witnessed a whopping jump by 80 times to Rs 846 crore since 1952 when it was mere Rs 10 crore.
The Election Commission of India has decided to seize both licensed and illegal weapons before the Lok Sabha election and will reject requests from political parties for change of poll dates because of festivals in Assam.
Banerjee also alleged that the BJP is manipulating electronic voting machines to increase its vote share.
Forget about interim Budgets, one cannot easily recall even a full Budget of any government in recent times having rolled out benefits of this order to such a large number of people, says A K Bhattacharya.
Polling in Madhya Pradesh was marred by complaints of faulty EVMs and voter verifiable paper audit trail machines.
It looks as if competing political parties in Tamil Nadu have not grasped the full impact and import of a sizable section of voters possibly staying away from voting -- voters, supposedly with a predictable polling pattern -- owing to the Covid second wave and more so, how it could affect the outcome in individual constituencies and even booths, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who will be the second Indian prime minister to visit Fiji after Indira Gandhi, comes at a time when the islands are moving to consolidate the new democratic system
'Bribing voters is very, very less in Kerala; I would say, almost zero... Across the border, there is so much of money power during the elections. But I don't think in Kerala, people vote for money... People of Kerala do believe that politics can bring in good governance, 'says Nalini Netto, the Chief Electoral Officer, Kerala.
'The attempt to make Aadhaar mandatory has now emerged as an act of bullying by government agencies, turning citizens into subjects by making fundamental rights conditional on biometric identification,' says Gopal Krishna.
The BJP's win in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls has emboldened the top leadership to pursue a pro-woman agenda.
A K Bhattacharya lists three reasons why Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will most likely present a full Budget on February 1, 2019.
Fiscal discipline has been maintained but toxic assets worth Rs 7 crore are a massive headache
In Indian elections today, India's Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath says, "Muscle Power has been replaced by 'Money Power,'" adding that the Election Commission's greatest dilemma is worrying about how the media can be prevented from influencing the outcome in the coming general election.
'Hindu voters in coastal Karnataka lean more towards Hindutva than Hinduism which explains why the Siddaramaiah government's perception as anti-Hindu worked wonders for the BJP in coastal Karnataka.'
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