'Just today a shopkeeper I went to was saying how bad business is. He must have been a BJP supporter.' 'He finally said, "It's a good thing there's an NDA government, not a BJP government, 'they' had become too big for their boots,".'
'I don't know whether on voting day there will be intimidation from some militant groups to vote for a particular person and then force them from voting for another in the stronghold of the candidate which does not favour them, or, force them not to come out for voting.' 'Anything is possible.'
According to Election Commission (EC) figures, the AAP bagged 53.6 per cent votes in the Delhi Assembly polls, the results of which were declared on Tuesday. It had bagged 54.34 per cent votes in 2015.
'If the Pawars are so powerful, then why are they scared of me?'
'All governments disappointed us. Now we don't have faith in any of them'
'After a month of working on the new machine, I realised that the black glass on the VVPAT lets the programmer manipulate not just the electronic system, but the paper vote too.' 'And it will not be detected even during the mock poll or the actual voting because of the black glass.'
'The Congress in the past backed the demand, but will not support it now since the SP opposes any division of UP.'
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday won four seats in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha, while the Rashtriya Janata Dal retained the Mokama assembly seat in the bypolls to seven assembly constituencies in six states.
On the other hand, Congress' vote share has risen to about 41.4 per cent this time
A 6 per cent swing in favour of Biju Janata Dal appeared to have catapulted the regional party to a landslide victory in simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly polls in Odisha where it stormed back to power for the fourth consecutive term.
'EVMs are absolutely credible, they are robust.' 'It's only a calculator with certain instructions. And the sim card inside an EVM is burnt and cannot be reprogrammed.' 'Besides, the machines are circulated among various states. No machine is allowed to remain in one state after an election.' 'By far, it is one of the finest innovations India should be proud of.'
'Unless she joins one of the coalitions, she has a bleak future.' 'The NDA option is suicidal, but INDIA could help her.'
Campaigning for May 13 elections in 96 Lok Sabha constituencies across 10 states and Union territories including all seats in Andhra Pradesh, where assembly elections are also being held concurrently, and Telangana concluded on Saturday evening.
Among the keenly watched contests are those involving former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (Kannauj, UP) and Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai, Bihar), Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur, Bihar) and Raosaheb Danve (Jalna, Maharashtra).
BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Friday won Vadodara Lok Sabha seat by a margin of 5,70,128 votes.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani appeared to be on the same page as Narendra Modi, a rarity since the acrimony over naming PM candidate, as he endorsed the Gujarat chief minister's view that there that there should be compulsory voting along with the 'none-of-the-above' option.
The BJP on Tuesday retained the prestigious Vadodara Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat vacated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with a huge margin of more than 3.29 lakh votes.
The ruling BJP-led coalition ended Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan's over four-decade dominance in Rampur with its ally Apna Dal-Sonelal winning the Suar assembly by-election by a margin of 8,724 votes.
With the declaration of results for the Tripura Assembly polls on Thursday, the Bharatiya Janata Party returned to power in the state by winning 32 seats and its ally Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) winning one.
If she cannot recast the party, bring together the factions opposed to her, and present herself as her brother's true challenger, there will be little left for her in politics, notes Aditi Phadnis.
'And when the floats go by in the parade garlanded and decorated with the posters of gun toting assassins and murderers and martyrs, you look the other way.' 'And in return we will bring you 10,000 votes because the people of the gurdwaras will vote as we tell them to vote.'
We asked you to tell us your reason for choosing not to vote. This is what our readers shared.
Should NOTA ever get the maximum number of votes (which makes it the 'winner'), then a re-election should be held and all the candidates should be disqualified.'
For the first time, the Election Commission will provide 'None Of The Above' option button in EVMs for the 11 crore voters who will exercise their franchise in the five states going to polls beginning next month.
The Congress MP from Sivaganga also slammed the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance and said the people of Tamil Nadu do not want a government which has any "stain, scent or shadow" of the BJP as its 'Hindi-Hindutva' agenda "irritates" them.
A section of voters in Delhi chose to exercise the newly-introduced 'None Of The Above Option' on Wednesday, saying they have "little expectations" from any of the political parties engaged in the electoral battle.
26 candidates in Amethi fray take away 60,545 votes; the difference between the victorious Smriti Irani and Rahul Gandhi is 55,120 votes.
The Thackeray faction on Tuesday claimed that voters were being paid to choose None Of The Above or NOTA option.
BJP candidate Kedar Prasad Gupta defeated Manoj Singh Kushwaha of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United by 3,645 votes in Kurhani.
A total of 13 functionaries from the Tamil Nadu unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday quit the party to join its alliance partner the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).
The Congress won this seat after the 2009 Lok Sabha poll when Congress candidate Partap Singh Bajwa had won.
The Congress won 40 seats in the 68-member Himachal Pradesh assembly while the BJP got 25 seats.
The Hindus who migrated from Pakistan and settled in Rajasthan who had earlier decided to boycott the assembly cast their vote on Sunday. They had vowed to use the 'none of the above' option, introduced for the first time in Rajasthan this election season, but later changed their mind.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday thanked the people for helping the Aam Aadmi Party "breach the BJP's fortress" in Gujarat and asserted that the party would win the state the next time.
Rule of law prevents a government, brought to power by the strength of ballots, from betraying the trust of citizens and "lapsing into a government of caprice, nepotism and finally despotism", the Supreme Court said on Thursday.
From the voter-level, traditionally anti-BJP, anti-Hindutva minorities and other secular voters would have an option, especially in the face of the mounting anti-incumbency against the ruling party -- as it happened in the 2001 assembly polls, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Congress on Thursday secured a seat in the present Bengal assembly as its candidate Bayron Biswas won the Sagardighi bypoll, defeating the nearest rival of the Trinamool Congress by 22,980 votes.
Assembly polls in Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal, Odisha and Sikkim will also be held simultaneously, the Election Commission said.
Shiromani Akali Dal-Amritsar's Simranjit Singh Mann on Sunday won the Sangrur Lok Sabha seat after defeating his nearest rival, Aam Aadmi Party's Gurmail Singh, by a margin of 5,822 votes.
When it comes to the winning strike rate, Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal has emerged victorious on eight of every ten seats it contested while only one of the every three Bharatiya Janata Party candidates managed to win.
