Voting began on Thursday in the by-election to seven assembly constituencies in six states -- a contest symbolic of the fierce turf war between the Bharatiya Janata Party and regional parties.
Generally, elections in Tamil Nadu are like temple festivals -- there are lights, fireworks, music, dance and colourful people. But Election 2009 seems to be muted in the state.
In Bundelkhand, support for Narendra Modi seems to cut across the caste barriers; even so, a vigorous and 4-cornered tussle is on the cards. Sahil Makkar reports
The polling body said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not violate the model code or its advisory on armed forces in his speech in Varanasi. It also found nothing wrong in his comments made in Nanded, Maharashtra where he reportedly dubbed the Congress as a 'sinking Titanic'.
943 candidates are contesting 71 seats spread across 9 states.
In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, where it was introduced for the first time in any parliamentary election, around 60 lakh voters had opted for the NOTA option -- equalling about 1.1 per cent of the total votes polled during those elections across 543 seats.
The Congress won 40 seats in the 68-member Himachal Pradesh assembly while the BJP got 25 seats.
'For the first time one single party is getting 49% which is a record of its own.'
The last voting percentage given by the commission on Saturday night was 61.46 per cent. The voting in the national capital to elect a new government ended at 6 pm on Saturday.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi will kickstart his party's official election campaign with help of 3D technology on Sunday at 6 pm from Ahmedabad, and will simultaneously address people in Ahmedabad , Rajkot, Baroda and Surat with the help of 3D high-technology, says our correspondent.
If Rahul's yatra makes a political statement from the other side of the aisle and Shah Rukh's success underlines a more relaxed popular mood, Mr Modi and Mr Bhagwat's cues to their followers are coming from another place, observes Shekhar Gupta.
'If there is anyone who is a victim of vendetta politics, it is me.'
Khalid Saifullah created Missing Voters, an app which enables people to conveniently apply for voter cards.
When Home Minister Amit Shah, who was in Gujarat to cast his vote in the urban body polls, learnt of the poor voter, instead of heading home he went to the Motera stadium, organised a control room, and was on the phone with practically everybody assigned duty on the ground: MPs, MLAs and BJP office-bearers. His single commandment was to check the voter list and phone or personally get people to the booths, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
Is anyone in the BJP listening -- to what Nitin Gadkari had to say, but possibly left unsaid? asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
Sharing his experience of the yatra so far, the Congress leader said he felt sad while talking to farmers, youth, and tribals.
This time however, the poll panel did not share the overall polling percentage at its briefing.
The fate of 237 candidates, including two ministers and a former CM, will be decided in this final phase.
'It is less polarising than Hindutva.'
Upasna Pandey goes out on the streets to gauge the mood ahead of the polls
The Madras High Court on Tuesday dismissed as not maintainable, a public interest litigation (PIL) petition challenging the organisational polls of the opposition AIADMK, where incumbents O Panneerselvam and K Palaniswami were elected unopposed as Coordinator and Joint Coordinator, respectively, of the party.
The BJP secured a runaway victory in the Municipal Board elections in Assam, pocketing 72 civic bodies out of 80. The Congress, the principal opposition party of the state, could not even win a single civic body.
A day after the exit polls predicted a hung assembly in Goa, hectic political activities have begun in the state with the Congress focusing on keeping its flock together and plans to shift all its candidates to a resort, a senior party leader said on Tuesday.
Twitter highlighted 2 of Trump's tweets that falsely claimed mail-in ballots would lead to widespread voter fraud.
Shah said that the people of the country will decide about the principal opposition party to BJP in the 2024 polls and they have not given this label to any party.
'The margin of victory or loss would make both camps rethink their strategies for the 2024 assembly election in Maharashtra.'
'With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,' Trump tweeted on Thursday, just 96 days before the election. 'It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???' Trump said in his tweet, which was immediately condemned by the opposition Democratic party leaders.
'I had the Indian American community fully supportive from day one when I ran and they said, Yes.' 'I ran again, I lost and they said, Yes.' 'I came back to them again, and they said, Yes, every time.'
'This year felt different -- and was different.' 'For the first time, the Indian American voter seemed to matter.'
support for the AAP notwithstanding, the BJP is convinced it will win Delhi.
A high voter turnout was recorded in West Bengal, Assam Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry assembly elections on Tuesday. The massive polling exercise following COVID-19 health protocol and involving lakhs of personnel began at 7 am and the last hour from 6 pm to 7 pm was set aside for COVID-19 patients and those under isolation. The counting of votes in the states will be held on May 2.
The eight-phase DDC polls, which began on November 28, is also the first election after Jammu and Kashmir's special status under Article 370 was revoked last year and it was reorganised into a Union Territory.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi claimed that "20-25 per cent" voters from the minority community had voted for him in the assembly polls and asked the party cadre to reach out to all sections, including Muslims, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
We asked you, dear readers to tell us your reason for choosing not to vote. This is what our readers shared.
'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.'
With the 2019 Lok Sabha polls less than eight months away, the party has resumed stoking the emotional issue through its second-and third-rung leaders.
'Let me reveal for the first time that around August 2019 Congress President Sonia Gandhi told the Congress leadership and CWC members to form a consensus over the name of a non-Gandhi leader.'
'She should review her strategy of social engineering and get back to the BSP's initial plank of social change.'
This time round, even 'petrol coupons' were reportedly distributed for those attending campaign rallies, especially those addressed by top leaders, cutting across party lines. If this owed to the rising cost of petrol and diesel -- which is a poll issue this time -- there were the customary coupons for 'quarter' (liquor bottle size) and non-vegetarian biryani. Some media reports claimed that some of these 'crowds' attended more than one political rally on the same day in the last week, and at times for rival political parties in adjoining constituencies or districts, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Back of the envelope calculations put government expense on each of the new schemes promised by the DMK and the AIADMK at tens of thousands of crores. But then, neither party has said how they are going to also address the mounting debt burden either, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
