The suspense over whether Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will contest the polls from Amethi and Raebareli respectively continued.
Prominent celebrity losers include national award-winning actor Suresh Gopi, comedian Dharmajan Bolgatty, actress Priyanka Anoop, actor-anchor Krishnakumar and television serial actor Vivek Gopan.
The youngest contestant of the April 13 Assembly polls in the prestigious Ernakulam constituency, National Students' Union of India President Hibi Eden of the Congress-led United Democratic Front, will cross swords with veteran Sebastian Paul of Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Democratic Front.
Asked how many seats INDIA bloc will get, Gandhi said, "Have you heard Sidhu Moose Wala's song '295'? So 295 (seats)."
When it comes to the Congress and Wayanad, the only way the scepticism in the minds of some in Kerala may be addressed is by the Gandhi family proving that they are more than a passing caravan in town, reports Shyam G Menon.
Deriving from Narendra Modi's continuing charisma, the proposed scheme, if and when implemented, can cut both ways. That is to say, if Modi can win, he can lose. Or, someone else in his place, later on, could lose as much as he could win in his time, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The West Bengal polls will be in five phases.
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 CM said that the film exposes the conspiracies of 'love jihad', religious conversion and terrorism and its "hideous" face.
The Election Commission on Friday rebuffed Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan for his reported statement that central police force (CPF) personnel would be confined to barracks during by-polls to three assembly seats in the state tomorrow.
At least 12 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) reached West Bengal on Saturday morning as the state prepares to go to elections, officials said.
Regarding Satheesan, he said that "if we see each other at the venue, then we will see".
Buoyed by its victory in the Karnataka assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party will launch its nationwide campaign for next year's parliamentary polls from the south Indian state of Kerala next week. Senior party leader Venkiah Naidu will launch the three-month-long nationwide campaign of the party from Palakkad district in Kerala on June 21. Other top leaders are slated to follow suit in other parts of the country.
'As we enter 2025, it must be acknowledged that there is a convergence of capital, influential people (from business and politics) and technology deciding the destiny of others in the name of pride, patriotism, nationalism, nation building, all of it thinly veiled disguises for personal profit and glory,' asserts Shyam G Menon.
There are 64 vacancies in the legislative assemblies of various states and one in Lok Sabha.
Another meeting convened by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge at his residence in New Delhi on Wednesday with the floor leaders of the INDIA constituents in Parliament will, however, go ahead according to its schedule to formulate the opposition strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Ruling Congress-led UDF in Kerala on Saturday suffered a setback in the civic elections, billed as the semifinal ahead of next year's assembly polls, as CPI-M-led LDF won a majority of local bodies while the BJP made inroads improving its performance.
The Trinamool Congress registered a decisive victory in West Bengal on Sunday, contrary to results of most exit polls which predicted a tight race between the BJP and the TMC with an edge to the Mamata Banerjee-led party.
'Both of us are not politicians. We were forced to enter politics to counter corruption that is looting the country.'
Considering the anticipatory bail plea moved by George, the high court granted him interim relief with conditions.
Modi hit out at the Congress for its president Mallikarjun Kharge's attempt to play down his party's poor show in the polls by describing it as "small state elections".
If Kerala wants to sustain its room for independent thinking and talk back to Delhi when needed, it should put its finances in order. Or - if one takes the North East example - Kerala's political posturing may end up commensurate with its financial dependence on others, suggests Shyam G Menon.
While Muraleedharan said his party would actively work for UDF's victory, Chennitala said he was happy that all Congressmen were reuniting under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi.
The party was trounced in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and is now left with only Himachal Pradesh in the north. It is ruling in only three states on its own and is in power in Bihar and Jharkhand as a junior partner in alliance with regional parties.
It may be for the first time that any leader in any political party in Kerala had taken such a step to register their protest against the party leadership for denying poll ticket.
As voters queued up in Kerala to cast their ballot in the assembly polls on Wednesday, Union defence minister and senior Congress leader AK Antony reiterated that the United Democratic Front will come to power in the state with a thumping majority.
The Congress Working Committee will meet on Sunday to discuss the outcome of the assembly elections in five states where the party received a drubbing, sources said.
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 Chief Election Commissioner pointed out that the exercise involved nearly 7.3 crore voters and over 1.06 lakh polling stations.
Raut also said the "ongoing Mahabharat" in West Bengal is more fierce than the real Mahabharat.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
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.
A court in Wayanad on Wednesday directed the police to register a case against Bharatiya Janata Party Kerala chief K Surendran on charges of bribing tribal leader and Janathipathya Rashtreeya Party (JRP) president C K Janu to contest as an NDA candidate in the Mananathavady Assembly constituency in the April 6 elections.
In private, questions are being raised about the wisdom of a 'dual-SIM' leadership during the long run-up to the 2026 assembly polls where 'family rule' could become an election issue, reports N Sathiya Moorthy.
The LDF would meet on Sunday to discuss matters related to ministry formation, Vijayan said when asked about the nature of the new ministry.
Seeking to reach out to the fishing community in poll-bound Kerala, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday interacted with the fishermen at Thangassery beach in the district.
Like, Share, Subscribe, Vote: The 2024 polls may be dubbed 'YouTube election'.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The central election committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party will meet on Thursday to finalise its first list of candidates for five assembly polls, with top party leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expected to attend the meeting.
While the opposition alliance is putting up a united front in Ghosi constituency in Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand's Dumri, Dhanpur and Boxanagar in Tripura and Uttarakhand's Bageshwar, its constituents are contesting against each other in Dhupguri in West Bengal and Puthuppally in Kerala.
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