Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi on Saturday cruised to her maiden electoral victory, from the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in Kerala, with a margin of over 4.1 lakh votes against Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Democratic Front's Sathyan Mokeri, according to figures released by the Election Commission.
'The fraud is the electronic voting machine is being manipulated by humans, and not counting the votes that is shown on VVPAT.'
The WFI will resume national camp from March 27, after after almost 16 months with Sonepat and Gandhinagar in Gujarat to be the likely venues for men and women respectively.
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.
With its age-old fascination for education, southern states have done better than the North. Start-ups, IT hubs, and industry majors setting up shop have changed the face of the South. Nearly 79% of global offices set up by international conglomerates in India are in the South. Almost 46% of tech unicorns are from the South. The GDP per person in the South is 4.2 times higher than the North. None of these indicators can be ignored by any central government, whatever the political compulsions, notes Ramesh Menon.
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 Election Commission has said it will allow suspected fake voters to cast their ballots in the Palakkad assembly by-poll, but will take action against them later. The CPI(M), Congress, and BJP have accused each other of enrolling fake voters. The by-poll is scheduled for November 20.
While members from Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Nagaland and Tripura are retiring on April 2, five members from Punjab are retiring on April 9.
Addressing reporters at his residence soon after the meeting ended, Chowdhury said six names came up before the panel for the selection of the two ECs and the names of Sandhu and Kumar were finalised by a majority of members of the high-powered panel.
'So, they have taken away the word Waqf from the Bill.' 'It will now be known as the UMEED Act.'
A high-level committee on Thursday recommended simultaneous elections for Lok Sabha and state assemblies as the first step followed by synchronised local body polls within 100 days.
Separately, the poll panel also issued a notice to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, asking him to respond to the complaints filed by the BJP against him and the main opposition party's senior leader Rahul Gandhi regarding their remarks.
The Kerala government on Friday decided to recommend a judicial inquiry against central probe agencies, including the Enforcement Directorate, which are investigating the gold and dollar smuggling cases.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted searches against Chennai-based 'lottery king' Santiago Martin, the single biggest donor to political parties with over Rs 1,300 crore in electoral bonds, as part of a money laundering investigation. The action comes after the Madras High Court allowed the ED to proceed against Martin following a police decision to close the initial FIR against him.
Given the possibilities that next year's assembly elections could throw up, Stalin told the state assembly that an interim report had to be submitted by January 2026. The outcomes may well find its way into the DMK's poll manifesto, thus seeking to keep the electoral focus still on the BJP-ruled Centre and Prime Minister Modi, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The IMD has warned of heatwave to severe heatwave conditions in parts of West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh during the next five days.
The proportion of postal votes polled in the general elections has gradually risen since 2009.
'He has emerged as a formidable leader who cannot be ignored anymore, who cannot be mocked.'
The poll panel has convened a press conference at 4.30 pm.
Shah said that the complaint was lodged based on the provisional certificate which he got after receiving the shot at a vaccination centre on Thursday morning.
The National People's Party, which rules Meghalaya, is another national party which received no donations through electoral bonds.
The Election Commission (EC) on Thursday said it has resolved the issue of some Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) showing an extra vote during a mock poll in the north Kerala district of Kasargod.
The plea had also sought to bar the BJP and its leaders from using the "Jai Shri Ram" slogan during the poll campaign in the state.
Embroiled in a battle for survival, Left parties marginally improved their performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, leading in eight to 10 seats according to vote counting trends.
'Kerala will lose 6 seats, Tamil Nadu 9 seats, Telangana and Karnataka 2 seats each, Andhra Pradesh 5 seats.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended his whirlwind Lok Sabha poll campaign with a rally in Punjab's Hoshiarpur on Thursday, closing out his electioneering the way he began -- by focussing on a region where he has invested heavily over the years for the Bharatiya Janata Party to make a mark outside its strongholds.
A Congress delegation will meet the Election Commission on Friday to submit a petition against PM Narendra Modi for his 'divisive and intemperate remarks' used in Kerala.
"Mock polls" are part of the first level check (FLC) process.
He could have blazed a trail that few Indian judges had. It was a missed opportunity of a lifetime, notes Ramesh Menon.
The 52-year-old, who joins her mother Sonia and brother Rahul as an MP in what is a rare instance of three members of a family together in Parliament, would visit Parliament as a teenager to listen to her father Rajiv Gandhi speak as prime minister.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's tally in Rajya Sabha has dipped below 90 for the first time in several years but the party and its allies are expected to not only recoup the their losses but also make some gains when by-elections to fill the existing vacancies are held in the coming weeks.
An average voter turnout of 20 per cent was recorded in the first four hours of voting in the bypolls to 15 assembly seats spread across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Uttarakhand on Wednesday amid an incident of stone pelting in a village in UP's Meerapur and allegations of police personnel deterring voters from casting their ballot.
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.
Modi said his government had made efforts to make all kitchens in the country smoke free.
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.
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.
The specter of how the Munambam issue was exploited during the November by-elections is proof of the price Kerala is paying for its emergent politics. Controversies become the stuff of slow-burn and brinkmanship. The former promises mileage; the latter searches for an advantage, notes Shyam G Menon.
'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'
Meanwhile, allegations and counter claims continued on polling day as well, with Chandy's son -- Chandy Oommen -- claiming that his father and their family had been hounded for over 20 years.
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.
