'The West has always opposed a strong nationalist leader in India and Narendra Modi is no exception.' 'The West prefers weak leaders who are amenable to Western pressure and Mr Modi's independent stance is not to the liking of the West,' asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
The curious onlookers that greet the candidates are, however, unaware about the importance of history. They are just there to catch a glimpse of 'Rani Ma' Amrita Roy or Mahua Moitra.
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.
As the Kejriwal empire spreads, will he be able to keep the momentum going? And will it be at the cost of greater centralisation of authority in the party, asks Aditi Phadnis.
Indications are that the DMK combine will win more seats than the AIADMK and BJP, but is facing a tough fight in about half a dozen from the rest, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy of the electoral contest in Tamil Nadu.
Hindu temples are also coming up in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, the prime minister told the gathering.
'This means the remedy will be worse than the disease. The thing which you want to avoid will happen.'
Noting that the Congress was not able to win even a single Lok Sabha seat in 17 states, he said it was time for the Congress to introspect and "accept defeat".
The commission said polling was held at 15,940 polling stations spread across 44 assembly constituencies in this phase of polls.
Leaders of 22 political parties had on Tuesday urged the poll panel to ensure paper slips from the VVPAT module are matched before the counting begins so that in cases of discrepancy, all votes in that particular assembly segment can be cross-checked with the paper slips.
Modi targeted Congress's president-elect Rahul Gandhi, saying he was born with a "golden spoon" and has not seen poverty.
AI implementation enabler Staqu will deploy its proprietary video analytics system JARVIS to count votes directly from the camera by monitoring the electronic voting machines screens at the counting centre.
Raising slogans, members of the BRS, Left parties and some members of the Congress walked out of Lok Sabha in protest as the prime minister was speaking.
A group of IT experts from US have claimed that the Indian EVMs are not tamper-proof and asked the Election Commission to explore other forms of voting that provide "transparency" and security.
The EC received complaints from five places that EVMs were connecting to external devices via bluetooth, but after inquiry, it was found that there was 'no substance' in the complaints.
The poll watchdog faces two Heruclean tasks -- to produce over a million VVPATs in time for the 2019 elections and also iron out manufacturing tweaks in the machines which are already in use.
J Alex Halderman, leading electronic voting security expert tells Vicky Nanjappa what the problems with India's voting machines are and how to fix them.
'Don't forget the BJP in the last election almost doubled its vote.' 'Even if they were not traditional BJP supporters, they were convinced about Mr Modi.' 'If the voter perceives that Mr Modi has performed well and he reinforces it, they will vote for him.' 'Otherwise, they won't.'
Voting is being held in 59 of the total 60 seats .
This time however, the poll panel did not share the overall polling percentage at its briefing.
The opposition parties snatched the high-profile Kairana LS seat in from BJP with a united force.
As Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami says, 'When one vote is cast, the machine takes twelve seconds to reactivate. So the "productivity" of the fraudsters goes down, since you can't just stuff bunches of paper into a box.' The time delay has also helped the Commission figure out when 'stuffing' has happened with a machine. 'If we spot a series where votes were cast every twelve seconds, we simply cancel that result.'
Nagaland Chief Electoral Officer Abhijit Sinha said the violence in Akuluto constituency in Zunheboto district left one dead and two injured.
Thirty-five per cent of the 64,41,634 voters exercised their franchise till noon on Monday in five Lok Sabha constituencies of Assam where four persons clashed with CRPF personnel demanding that they be allowed to cast their vote first in Kaliabor constituency.
Till now, the postal ballots were counted in the beginning followed by votes polled in voting machines.
'If he were to ask me, I would tell Mr Modi that the real Congress legacy he has to undo is not Nehru's social and political philosophy -- which fits India perfectly -- but his daughter's economic philosophy,' says T C A Srinivasa Raghavan.
Should NOTA ever get the maximum number of votes (which makes it the 'winner'), then a re-election should be held and all the candidates should be disqualified.'
Barring Maharashtra, the poll percentage in rest of the states was in excess of 60 per cent while in Puducherry it was 80.47 per cent.
A group of first time voters who run 10 km everyday to prepare for fauji recruitment rallies, tell Rediff.com's Archana Masih they need two things: quality education and jobs.
Asked about the selection of chief ministers in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, he said there will not be any issue and it will be done smoothly.
'No Indian political party functions in a democratic way.'
'My passion is dancing and music. What is wrong with that?'
Despite a slow down in polling at midday due to the scorching heat, voter turnout was around 50 per cent till 2 pm on Friday for elections to the lone Mizoram Lok Sabha seat and by-poll to the Hrangturzo assembly seat.
The ED has summoned Raj in a case pertaining to alleged irregularities related to Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services loan to Kohinoor CTNL.
'The BJP will be wiped out from all over India.'
'Haven't you heard of the magical EVM machines? They can negate all our votes.' 'There is no hope. Modi is India's Putin.'
Extensive arrangements have been made due to the COVID-19 pandemic including personal protective equipment kits for election staff, more polling booths, thermal screening, sanitisers, masks and gloves for voters and markings to ensure social distancing, officials said.
Over 20 political parties, except the Biju Janata Dal and the Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Front, took part in the massive rally.
'More people will come out of the BJP. You just wait and watch.'
'My God, what do I say? It's shocking!' 'They had 27 MLAs in 2012. And now they have just seven.' 'My party (the Apna Dal-S) contested 11 seats and won in nine.'
