Ahead of the Delhi assembly polls scheduled to be held early next year, state Congress chief Devender Yadav said on Friday that the party will contest on all 70 seats and there would be no alliance.
Lok Sabha polls will be held in seven phases beginning from April 19 and the counting of votes will take place on June 4 for the world's biggest election exercise in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will bid for a third consecutive term.
Thackeray said that the MNS will contest more seats than any other party.
Under Election Commission guidelines, campaigning has to end 48 hours before the close of polls for each phase.
Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com gives the lowdown on the 59 seats spread across seven states and one Union territory going to polls in the last and final phase of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections on May 19, 2019.
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar during the first day of review of poll preparedness of the state asked the district election officers and municipal commissioners to explain the steps taken by them to deal with 'urban apathy'.
While at some places people who had turned up at polling booths early in the morning left without casting their vote after waiting in line for a long time, Sena-UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray alleged that the process was slowed down deliberately.
The representation of women in the ongoing Lok Sabha polls continues to remain dismally low, as only about 12 percent of the candidates in the fray in the fifth phase are female, according to an analysis by poll rights body ADR.
Amidst people queuing up to cast their votes, there were some famous faces too at different polling stations.
The fate of 720 candidates will be decided by 2.28 crore voters
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and several prominent faces among 676 candidates are contesting on 57 seats spread across 10 districts in the state.
The first of the two-phase urban local body polls in Uttar Pradesh will take place on Thursday, a major poll battle in the politically crucial state ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections.
The Union cabinet on Wednesday accepted the recommendations of the high-level committee headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind on simultaneous elections.
There are 218,442 voters over 100 years on the electoral rolls.
Polling will be held on November 17, 20, 24, 27 and 29 and December 1, 4, 8 and 11 from 8 am to 2 pm.
The nearly 13-minute speech, with a booming voice resembling that of Bal Thackeray, began with his trademark opening line Jamlelya majhya tamam Hindu bandhavanu, baghinino ani matano (greetings to my Hindu brothers, sisters and mothers who have gathered here).
The stakes are significant for the BJP in this round as the party had in 2019 won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, that will go to polls on May 7.
'Unlike in the sporting arena, where sports federations moved from partisan to impartial referees, in Indian democracy's biggest festival, it appears we are moving backward from unbiased and objective to one-sided and partisan,' observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, BJP national president JP Nadda and several other famous faces were seen at polling booths, exercising their franchise in the final and seventh phase of the Lok Sabha polls on Saturday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which has ruled Gujarat for 27 years, is trying to retain power in the state for the seventh term in a row.
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
Suspected Maoists killed a Border Security Force jawan as the third of the five-phase polling for 11 assembly constituencies registered about 50 to 55 per cent turnout in Jharkhand on Tuesday.
The next Census' findings will help identify the extent of India's ageing population and vulnerability levels.
In a setback for the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, the exit polls on Saturday predicted that the Bharatiya Janata Party will move ahead of Mamata Banerjee's party in the Lok Sabha elections in the state.
Voting for 10 constituencies was held from 7 am to 3 pm in 10 seats and from 8 am to 5 pm in the rest 10 segments under a thick security blanket of police and paramilitary personnel in the Naxalite-hit Bastar division.
The turnout for these seats was 57.92 per cent in the last assembly polls in 2012.
"The turnout in the four Lok Sabha seats was low as compared to the 2019 polls but on the basis of feedback received from these constituencies, we are confident of winning these. People are fed up with false promises made by BJP leaders," he said.
Besides disclosing in their affidavits, candidates have to prominently declare criminal cases they are facing, if any, thrice in newspapers in print as well on television, he said, adding that political parties too have to publish within three days of nomination why a candidate with criminal background was selected. "You (political parties) have to tell the public whether you did not get any (other) candidate and why was it necessary to select them (those with criminal background)," he said.
Counting of votes in all elections will be held on May 2.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Sunday said the state assembly polls are expected to be held in the second week of November and seat-sharing among the ruling allies would be finalised in the next 8 to 10 days.
This was the first general election in the valley after the abrogation of Article 370 and the enactment of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, the EC said in a statement.
As the polling dates for the maiden assembly polls after abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir draws near, several organisations of the Kashmiri Pandit community has decided to refrain from the electoral process in the Union Territory over 'persistent denial of their genocide'.
The first phase drew a turnout of about 46 per cent and the second 47 per cent.
Polling started at 7 am and closed at 6 pm and there were reports of technical snags in EVMs at some places, but voting was peaceful, Election Commission officials said.
Here are glimpses of famous faces who got their fingers inked.
Fourteen people, including 10 polling personnel, have died due to heatstroke in Bihar in the last 24 hours, officials said on Friday afternoon.
An average 59.24 per cent voter turnout was recorded as of 5 pm on Thursday across 89 assembly seats in the first phase of Gujarat elections, officials said.
The constituencies that will go to polls in the second phase in Manipur.
The region that will go to poll on February 8.
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