The poll panel has convened a press conference at 4.30 pm.
It will be in Modi's interest to reinvent his party, read the writing on the wall that voters wrote, and move ahead. He has little choice now. The country is watching, asserts Ramesh Menon.
Sources said Rahul Gandhi is likely to contest from Rae Bareli, but a final call is yet to be taken by the first family of the Congress.
'The 2024 election results will lead to much intense targeting of Modi, more intense debates, many more breakdowns in Parliament and many more movements on the streets.' 'The results have hit Modi's standing, and the politics of the Opposition parties will be sharply focused to ensure that Modi doesn't get back his charisma of being 'invincible' with help of State power.' Sheela Bhatt looks at the political situation through the prism of 2024 Lok Sabha election results.
In the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls, there were 135 women candidates while in the second phase, there were 100 women candidates, bringing the combined total for the first two phases to 235 women candidates.
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.
Whether Rajeev Chandrasekhar wins or not, Thiruvananthapuram will likely never see such an interesting contest again.
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.
'Rahul Gandhi has done nothing for the constituency'
Kharge claimed that though the BJP says the corrupt must be put in jails, when leaders facing corruption charges join the saffron party, they are "put on the lap" and sent to Rajya Sabha or assembly.
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.
'Initially, I didn't think much of him. But when I walked alongside him, I realized he has what it takes.'
Besides Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow), Minister of Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), those in the fray are Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj) and Minister of State of Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).
Court documents show that the Kerala government, whose case was treated as the 'lead case' among all the petitions filed against Adani, made four allegations to convince the court to cancel the contract for the Thiruvanathapuram airport. The state's legal team couldn't substantiate most of these allegations with documentary proof and its self-defeating arguments in court failed to convince the judges to cancel the contract given to Adani. The battle for the Thiruvananthapuram airport between the Communist-led Kerala government, the Adani group and the Modi government over the past year hasn't had a dull moment since the proceedings began. Claims of a smoking gun turned out to be a damp squib, says Sai Manish.
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Heatwave conditions are expected over northwest India during the next five days, with Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi predicted to bear the maximum impact, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Thursday.
The Congress chief, however, said he was not expecting any cooperation from the prime minister and the BJP-led central government for the development of Wayanad and Kerala.
The country has seen that "people are God" in elections, the PM said.
Pappu Yadav has been asserting that he will contest the seat he had won thrice in the 1990s, with the claim of "assurances" from Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi.
Who else do we know who meditated so with such impeccable timing (much of the Lok Sabha elections over and with only the last phase to go) and hordes for unsolicited defence of the grand meditation at public expense? asks Shyam G Menon.
'The second Covid wave spread due to the irresponsibility of the Election Commission of India and now they are committing the same mistake.'
The Met office has issued a "red" warning for Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and west Rajasthan, stressing the need for "extreme care for vulnerable people".
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.
The cancellation of UGC-NET, amid the raging row over NEET, led to questions being raised over National Testing Agency's (NTA) capability to conduct exams of larger magnitude.
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.
Asked how many seats INDIA bloc will get, Gandhi said, "Have you heard Sidhu Moose Wala's song '295'? So 295 (seats)."
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.
Robert Vadra said he has tested positive after he came in contact with someone who was COVID positive.
More than 750 constituencies spread across four states and one union territory will go to the polls on Tuesday
'In spite of all the sermonising from the political class, when they come in public, the ministers don't follow their own rules.' 'They don't mask.' 'If you look at the West Bengal election campaigning, if you look at the Assam election campaigning or if you look at Kerala election campaigning, they are not setting an example.'
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.
The party fielded Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur, while Uttar Pradesh minister Jitin Prasada has replaced Varun Gandhi in Pilibhit.
In the five years in politics Priyanka Gandhi has undeniably emerged as a thorn in the BJP flesh, notes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay. It is time that this thorn is twisted a wee bit more when the elections have become far more uncertain than what it was when the Election Commission announced the poll schedule.
Devaswoms are meant to manage temples, not the faithful. Why didn't they simply stick to their set of responsibilities and execute it well and efficiently?, asks Shyam G Menon.
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.
Leaders of several Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties met on Saturday to take stock of the opposition's preparations leading up to the June 4 counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections, and claimed they will get more than 295 seats, enough for them to form the next government.
'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.
'It is a political failure, and not a medical failure.'
Vivek Ramaswamy, who dropped out of the race to win the Republican nomination for this November's US presidential election after polling a pathetic 8% in the Iowa caucus, has already begun schmoozing the famously amenable to flattery Donald J Trump.
He said the Congress has already begun preparation for the Lok Sabha polls with the ongoing 'Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra' led by party leader Rahul Gandhi and his own visit to various places across the country.
