As per the latest data available on the Election Commission's website, the BJP got 38.09 per cent votes while TMC which swept the assembly elections polled 47.97 per cent votes.
The counting of votes in all these states and the UT will take place on May 2.
Dismissing as baseless Kitex group chairman Sabu Jacob's allegation that the atmosphere in Kerala is not industry-friendly, state Industries Minister P Rajeev on Wednesday said his government stands for "responsible investment" and the southern state would be made a destination of such investments in few years. In an exclusive interview to PTI, Rajeev said the focus of the government is to attract green industries and IT-based industries in Kerala as land scarcity and environmental issues associated with it have been a problem in the state. "We are always taking a stand in favour of investment, in favour of industries. But our need is that--investment should be responsible. We stand for responsible investment," said Rajeev, who represents Kalamassery-an industrial hub in Kerala--in the state Assembly. Elaborating on responsible investment, the minister said it is a strategy and practice to incorporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in investment decisions.
In the coming days, unless Modi tones down the communal spiel, it will be clear that anxiety continues to drive his mind and clouds his judgment, observes Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Thursday filed a defamation case in a local court against Communist Party of India-Marxist veteran V S Achutanandan.
The poll-panel called these seizures by its various field and technical enforcement teams a "historic milestone" achieved "for the first time in any assembly electoral process", meaning during simultaneously-held assembly polls.
Whenever they are announced, the bypolls to 20 assembly seats in Tamil Nadu will be a mini referendum on the state government's performance. It will also be a do-or-die battle for the ruling AIADMK, opposition DMK, as well as the rebel AMMK, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
Anti-Congress regional parties may have felt the possible impact of Rahul's South-North yatra, pending a second East-West padayatra, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
A new entrant, whether a popular actor or not, has not been able to sweep the polls, as their fans had hoped for. Given a proven pattern, it should hold true for Vijay as well. Or, something drastically has to happen between now and 2026, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
From the word go, Bihar growled its needs out when an MP from the state said aloud: "Give something for Bihar also, Madam." Every time the Budget mentioned cities and towns in Andhra Pradesh, "Kursi Bachao" was the call from Congress MPs.
Amid rising coronavirus cases, the Election Commission on Friday flagged instances of star campaigners and political leaders not wearing masks while campaigning, and asked them to follow in all seriousness the guidelines on COVID-appropriate behaviour issued by it last year.
Sushil Chandra will conduct the UP, Punjab, Goa, Manipur, Uttarakhand elections before he retires in May 2022.
He also said that the focus will be on developing infrastructure in a big way and bring the state out of the debt trap if the BJP wins the assembly polls that are likely to be held in April-May this year.
Given the reality of the disparity and the enormous shift over the last 50 years, this can be done without an open and frank conversation with the people, something that has not begun and, knowing the style of our leader, is not expected to begin, asserts Aakar Patel.
High voter turnout was recorded in most of the seven assembly constituencies in six states where by-elections were held on Tuesday.
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.
Vijay has a lot of young and middle-aged women fans, but as voters, they are possibly now with the DMK, or remain with the AIADMK. Recapturing this constituency would have helped Vijay's political launch and the GOAT script and dialogues could have gone a long way in helping out. But the kind of script and screenplay and the unusually and equally unnecessary long run-time (3 hours, 3 minutes) that GOAT offers takes the film experience over the heads of those that are not familiar with secret agents and uranium theft in Tamil cinema, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Actor-turned-politician and sitting MP Locket Chatterjee has been fielded from Chunchura and another MP Nishit Parmanik from Dinhata. Also, a number of film personalities have been nominated as candidates in the high-stakes battle for West Bengal.
The opposition party also said that it would like to remind the BJP that Hindu Mahasabha president Syama Prasad Mookerjee aligned with Jinnah's Muslim League to form the government in Bengal during the British rule.
Creating a positive reform that does away with an official who constitutes a flawed aspect of Indian democracy will allow the BJP to rightfully claim this as one of its positive legacies, suggests Karan P Shah.
While EC Secretary General Umesh Sinha would be visiting Tamil Nadu next week, Deputy Election Commissioner Sudip Jain would be in West Bengal in the coming days, sources said.
The first bench refused to restrain the media, both electronic and print, from publishing the oral observations of the judges relating the role of EC in holding elections to four states and the Union Territory of Puducherry in the country during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Chief Election Commissioner pointed out that the exercise involved nearly 7.3 crore voters and over 1.06 lakh polling stations.
A senior EC official said the COVID-19 pandemic and the flood situation were two reasons behind the decision.
The TDP and JD-U will have a lot to answer inside Parliament, day after day, session after session, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'They have been pursuing their agenda of bulldozing everything and everybody on their way.' 'They suddenly see Rahul Gandhi standing in front of them without fear and fighting against them aggressively.' 'He doesn't show any compromise in his attitude towards fascism.'
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Monday lashed out at Governor Arif Mohammed Khan for seeking resignation of vice chancellors of nine universities in the state.
rivals Congress, JMM and TMC and Samajwadi Party.
The EC had recently banned victory processions on the counting day to curb the spread of coronavirus.
The Election Commission is considering advancing the polls by a month to avoid the May heat, reports R Rajagopalan.
Counting of votes in all elections will be held on May 2.
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.
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.
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Everyone on election duty for the upcoming polls for five assemblies will be vaccinated against COVID-19 before polling day, the Election Commission said on Friday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that Mamamta is busy fighting with the poll panel instead of taking on political parties.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
Independent candidates may have won just three seats in the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls, but they have garnered close to three per cent vote share -- higher than parties like Aam Aadmi Party, the Nationalist Congress Party and Communist Party of India.
'There is one way to defeat the intention behind this directive: To patronise Muslim establishments that have been forced to identify themselves.' 'This is one opportunity for the Congress to show that the 'mohabbat ki dukaan' its leader talks about does exist.' 'Can Akhilesh Yadav, who has asked the court to take note of this directive, order his party members to do this?' asks Jyoti Punwani.
The Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday NCP leader Mohammed Faizal's plea against the Lok Sabha Secretariat for not withdrawing a notification disqualifying him as an MP upon his conviction and 10-year sentence that was later stayed by the Kerala high court.
