The results for the polls will be announced on May 18, Election Commission sources said.
Political parties have fielded sons, wives and daughters-in-law of legislators who quit after being elected to the Lok Sabha.
He was trolled during the Lok Sabha poll campaign, but despite the tactics by his rivals, action hero Suresh Gopi rose to national stardom in cinema style on June 4, winning the Thrissur seat on a BJP ticket and scripting history for the saffron party in Kerala.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for 'one nation, one Election' as recommended by the Kovind panel, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday.
'The current Election Commission functions more like a government department than an autonomous body.'
The results will be announced on May 2.
According to the Election Commission of India, the code has evolved over the last 60 years to assume its present form.
The grand old party alleged that these namesake candidates are backed by the Communist Party of India-Marxist and the Bharatiya Janata Party to confuse voters.
Eight sitting Members of Legislative Assembly including two ministers and the deputy speaker do not figure in the first list of candidates released by the Communist Party of India for the April 13 Kerala assembly polls.Revenue Minister K P Rajendran, Forest Minister Binoy Viswom and Deputy Speaker Jose Baby missed out following the party's decision not to field MLAs who have served two terms, party sources said.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the BJP of 'linguistic terror' and plotting to delete Bengali voters from electoral rolls, vowing to protect voting rights.
The Left rewrote history in Kerala on Sunday by becoming the first government to get a second term in four decades but its fortunes fell to a historic low in West Bengal where it failed to bag even one seat, resulting in its complete decimation in a state it once ruled for over three decades.
Leaders of several INDIA bloc parties met the Election Commission over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Bihar and raised concerns over its timing, alleging that over two crore voters of the state may be disenfranchised by this mammoth exercise being done just ahead of assembly elections.
"Mock polls" are part of the first level check (FLC) process.
JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who walked out of Tihar jail on bail last week, on Wednesday indicated that he is unlikely to campaign in the upcoming West Bengal and Kerala assembly polls.
Noted poet K Satchidanandan has alleged that he was restrained by Facebook from liking, commenting and sharing posts for 24-hours after he tried to upload online a satire video on the Bharatiya Janata Party's defeat in the recently concluded Kerala assembly polls.
Election Commission officials report finding a large number of illegal migrants from Nepal, Bangladesh, and Myanmar during a review of Bihar's voters' list. Measures are being taken to exclude them from the final electoral roll.
The Congress's second AICC session in Gujarat post-Independence is being held on the 100th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's party presidency and the 150th birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
Both LDF and UDF are finding it hard to set their houses in order.
"Congratulations to Mamata Didi for @AITCofficial's win in West Bengal. The Centre will continue to extend all possible support to the West Bengal Government to fulfil people's aspirations and also to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic," he tweeted.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday urged party leaders in Kerala to shed their differences and fight the coming assembly polls unitedly
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin has announced the formation of a panel headed by a retired Supreme Court judge to study the relationship between the Union and state governments and ensure state autonomy. The panel, which will submit its interim report in January 2026 and its final report in two years, will examine the transfer of subjects from the State List to the Concurrent List, citing the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) as an example of a subject outside state purview.
A little over a year after it retained power in Kerala with a massive victory, the CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front suffered a huge setback on Friday in a bypoll held to Thrikkakara assembly constituency, with Congress candidate Uma Thomas winning with a historic margin of 25,016 votes, giving a boost to the morale of the party-led United Democratic Front in the southern state.
Union Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan on Thursday clarified that the Bharatiya Janata Party has not yet decided to nominate former Delhi Metro chief E Sreedharan, popularly known as 'Metro Man', as the chief ministerial candidate of the party for the upcoming Kerala assembly polls.
'Kerala voters vote from their mind rather than their heart.'
It is for the first time that Kerala is having multi-phased elections.
At least one commentator felt that both the BJP's reach and popularity had been underestimated in Kerala. They have shown systematic gain; one that seems personality-neutral and therefore institutionalised, explains Shyam G Menon.
Ruling parties held sway in most of the 13 states in the assembly byelection results declared on Saturday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies wresting seats in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan and the Trinamool Congress sweeping West Bengal.
The Kerala unit of the Congress has made it clear to its allies that it would not succumb to their pressure tactics while finalising a seat sharing deal for the party-led coalition United Democratic Front in the forthcoming assembly polls. One of the Congress's allies in the state is Janadipathya Samarakshana Samithi, a political outfit floated by veteran Communist leader K R Gowri, who became part of the UDF fold after being expelled from the Communist Party of India.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-National Democratic Alliance, which fought the April 2 assembly polls with the fancy claim of winning at least 35 seats in Kerala, on Sunday came a cropper as it failed to retain even its lone segment Nemom, even as all its major contestants, including 'Metroman' E Sreedharan and party state chief K Surendran, fell by the wayside.
In 2019, an all-party meeting was held in Delhi and it was attended by 19 political parties to discuss critical reforms in governance. One of the subjects of the discussions was simultaneous elections
If the DMK is able to sustain the momentum until the assembly polls, the AIADMK especially and the PMK and possibly the infant TVK too would find it hard to sign up with the BJP, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
The LDF lost Kochi and Thrissur corporations but managed to retain power with a wafer-thin margin in Thiruvananthapuram and held sway over Kollam city civic body with a comfortable majority.The UDF swept the municipalities in Malappuram, Kottayam and Idukki district and also put up an impressive performance in Ernakulam, Wayanad and Kasargode.
Both parties refusing to yield on the key issue of number of DIC-K candidates contesting on Congress symbol.
'Women' as a political constituency appears to be an idea that has come of age. It is changing India in ways that we only dimly understand, asserts Aditi Phadnis.
In a blow to the Congress in poll bound Kerala, Senior leader P C Chacko on Wednesday announced his resignation from the party, alleging group interest in deciding party candidates for the assembly elections.
Achuthanandan, who is seeking re-election from Malampuzha in Palakkad district, said the UDF did not implement any of the promises it made in its manifesto in 2001.
Gopi defeated Communist Party of India leader VS Sunilkumar in an exciting fight.
The Commission, under Justice (retd) Ritu Raj Awasthi, would recommend an amendment to the Constitution to add the "new chapter or part" on simultaneous elections, the sources said.
If the party is unable to do well in Gujarat and Karnataka polls, it could lose this status in the subsequent binneial elections to the upper House.
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