High voter turnout was recorded in most of the seven assembly constituencies in six states where by-elections were held on Tuesday.
Haripad, the rural assembly segment in Kerala's rice bowl Kuttanad, has gained greater political significance with the entry of KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala as the United Democratic Front candidate.
The last leg of poll campaign saw many national leaders canvassing for their parties.
Wayanad will continue to support Rahul but not to the same extent as in 2019, when his margin of victory had been enormous. Articulate, to the point and speaking in fluent Malayalam, CPI's Annie Raja, had the people who gathered to see her, listening in rapt attention, notes Shyam G Menon.
'The presence of Rahul Gandhi and his campaigning for the Congress will make a general difference, but whether it will make a saving difference, not sure.'
The elections to the first phase would be held on April 22.
"I accept that in India children of politicians are in politics and there is nothing wrong in it but you won't be able to prevail and survive if you are not good," says 27-year-old Hibi Eden, president of the National Students Union and son of a former MP, selected by Rahul Gandhi to contest the Ernakulam assembly seat.
Three of the four major states delayed testing despite worsening indicators. Only Tamil Nadu quickened the pace after the first signs of deterioration.
Soumya Santosh worked as a caregiver attending to an old woman at a house in the southern Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon.
What is 'MGR' doing in Thiruvananthpuram, seeking votes?
The Congress has consciously contested on a lesser number of seats in this Lok Sabha election as part of a strategy to keep the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) together and defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has said.
'We are not secessionists, we want to coexist with our countrymen but not on the terms that will strip us off our dignity and a right to peaceful existence.'
Voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will be held on Friday for 88 seats in 13 states with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala.
Pinarayi Vijayan is a name not many Indians are familiar with, but few state leaders have such a strangehold over their party as the secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist's Kerala unit has. Can you think of the leader of any other state political unit preventing his party's chief minister from getting a ticket to contest an assembly election?
The recently held presidential election and the historic victory of Droupadi Murmu are likely to create political ripples in Kerala as the NDA candidate received an unexpected vote from the southern state.
The BJP is focusing determinedly on the seats it lost in 2019, with the hope of winning these either independently or with the aid of its allies.
A plea challenging the Election Commission's decision to conduct assembly elections over eight phases in West Bengal was filed in the Supreme Court on Monday.
The Wayanad Lok Sabha seat, where Rahul Gandhi won for the second time in a row, comprises three assembly constituencies each in the tribal district of Wayanad and the Muslim-dominated Malappuram, as well as one in Kozhikode district where Christians hold a significant vote base.
Whether Rajeev Chandrasekhar wins or not, Thiruvananthapuram will likely never see such an interesting contest again.
Against the backdrop of Kerala's appetite for commonsense, it was assumed that this controversy would pass. Respect for rationalism and scientific outlook is strong in the state despite political forces gnawing at it for their own goals, observes Shyam G Menon.
Sources said senior leaders of the party have been told to reach out to other leaders of the alliance and talks with some parties have begun.
The "uncommitted" Malayali voter today has hardly any political choice available. Even if he were to choose the Congress-led UDF in the polls on April 13, he would be acutely conscious that five years hence he would have no choice but to revert to the communist-led LDF to run the successor government, writes M K Bhadrakumar
The West Bengal assembly elections are due by March-April next year.
Mamata Banerjee fended off a spirited challenge by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal with a landslide victory for her Trinamool Congress on Sunday for a third consecutive term and the saffron party and the Left Democratic Front were poised to form government again in Assam and Kerala respectively while the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam stormed back to power in Tamil Nadu after a gap of 10 years.
The seven seats -- Bageshwar in Uttarakhand, Ghosi in Uttar Pradesh, Puthuppally in Kerala, Dhupguri in West Bengal, Dumri in Jharkhand, and Boxanagar and Dhanpur in Tripura -- went to poll on September 5.
The counting of votes in all these states and the UT will take place on May 2.
Public money 'looted' through an 'unholy nexus' between United Progressive Alliance politicians and bureaucrats is being used for the April 13 assembly elections in Kerala, alleged Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Prakash Karat on Saturday.
Modi's BJP has promised more revdis or freebies for these assembly elections than ever before, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'If we get 399 seats and you say we have not crossed 400, then it is your wisdom. But the '400 paar' slogan is based on calculation and considered opinion'
The counting of votes for the assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Kerala and Puducherry would be held on Thursday morning with trends expected early.
The People's Democratic Party of Abdul Nasser Madhani will work for the success of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front in the coming Assembly elections in Kerala.
More than 750 constituencies spread across four states and one union territory will go to the polls on Tuesday
'Metroman' E Sreedharan's decision to join the Bharatiya Janata Party has given a boost to the saffron's hopes to make huge electoral inroads in Kerala, one of the toughest political terrains for the party, in the assembly polls likely to be held in April.
Led by CPI-M stalwart, 87-year-old V S Achuthanandan, the LDF succeeded in staving off the anti-incumbency trend against the government, which was reflected in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls and civic elections last year, in which the UDF had stolen march over the Left front.
However, the percentage is likely to go up as the figures were not final.
The reshuffle in the Union Cabinet, carried out on Wednesday, appears to have some focus on assembly election-bound states like Kerala and Uttar Pradesh.
Even as the grand old party seeks to promote opposition unity ahead of the hustings next year, Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, however, would be conspicuous by her absence at the event at Sree Kanteerava Stadium.
The results of the assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal are hours away and Dominic Xavier wonders if a fresh government battleplan to fight the COVID-19 pandemic will only materialise after the electoral outcome is known.
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