The joint operation group of the Unified Command structure reviewed security scenario in the four Bodoland Territorial Area Districts in view of the Bodoland Territorial Council polls scheduled on April 8, a defence spokesman said on Friday.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday asked enforcement agencies to go after 'big fish' involved in drug trafficking, saying they need to find who is sending 'mountains' of illegal drugs into the country.
Polling in Rajarajeswari Nagar constituency has been deferred to May 28.
The Commission said it cannot, under the existing law, disqualify a contesting candidate or prevent him from contesting the election, nor can it prevent an elector from casting his vote in an election, if otherwise qualified and eligible, as is being demanded by some of the parties.
"Polling was held peacefully at the 11,697 polling booths across the state with 65.1 per cent of the electorate casting their votes till the close of polls," Chief Electoral Officer Saujanya who does not use a surname said.
Moreover, there have also been speculations that while entering into an alliance in August last year, a "deal" was struck whereby Nitish Kumar would give up his chair for his deputy who in turn would back him for the top job in national politics.
'By naming Tejashwi as the next CM candidate, he has put us in a dilemma.' 'Who will lead us in 2025?' 'What will happen to the party after 2025?'
Lead players in the poll-bound state are understood to be re-working their strategies on how to manage the campaign with less money with Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes becoming illegal tender in one stroke.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) said through a post on its official Twitter handle that the premises of its MLC Pushpraj alias Pampi Jain in Kannauj, Uttar Pradesh, have been raided.
I-T officials are also looking into the finances of candidates who contested state elections in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, and Karnataka, reports Shrimi Choudhary.
They said this was preliminary voter turnout and the final figure may cross 80 per cent as electoral fate of 301 candidates were locked in EVMs which will be opened on March 10 for counting.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked stakeholders like the Centre, Niti Aayog, Finance Commission and the Reserve Bank of India, to brainstorm on the 'serious' issue of freebies announced during elections and put forth 'constructive suggestions' to tackle it, saying no political party will oppose such handouts or like to debate it in Parliament.
Counting of votes in the high-stakes close-to-call Bihar assembly elections, billed as a hot battle between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, will take place on Sunday.
Innovative methods like transfer of funds through the RTGS banking system and concealment of currency wads inside car bonnets were detected by Election Commission as it took steps to curb the use of black money during the just-concluded Lok Sabha polls.
Guidelines have been issued by the Commission for safe conduct of the electoral exercise in the midst of the raging COVID-19 pandemic. These guidelines include lowering the maximum number of voters for a polling booth from 1,600 to 1,000, staggering the polling hours and extending postal ballot facility to those above 80.
Allegations of electronic voting machines malfunctioningreturned to haunt the Election Commission as four Lok Sabha seats and nine assembly constituencies went for bypolls on Monday across 10 states with moderate-to-heavy voting amid prestige at stake for the Bharatiya Janata Party as well as opposition parties ahead of the 2019 general elections.
Public money 'looted' through an 'unholy nexus' between United Progressive Alliance politicians and bureaucrats is being used for the April 13 assembly elections in Kerala, alleged Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Prakash Karat on Saturday.
A new Congress leader may make an electoral impact by his very presence. Congress voters who had moved away from the party, after being influenced by the BJP's 'family rule' campaign, can now return with a certain moral satisfaction, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
It said the election to Patkura assembly seat in Odisha will be held on July 20.
While the CPI-M in a statement after the secretariat on Friday maintained that Balakrishnan, who is also a Polit Bureau member, had sought leave for further treatment which had been accepted, the leader of opposition in the state assembly Ramesh Chennithala dubbed the move as a delayed dawning of wisdom.
The Election Commission has a fight on its hand as candidates use ingenious methods to smuggle in money to Voters.
Voters from the Gudivada assembly constituency refuse to cast their ballot, protest outside offices of political parties. Vicky Nanjappa reports
T K S Elangovan has alleged senior bank officials forged documents and faked authorisation from the RBI, to transport huge sums of hawala money during recent elections in the state.
"I have been in this business (banking) for two decades. While doing business nothing wrong has been done. However, irregularities may happen. If irregularities have happened, there is punishment for it. I am ready to face punishment," state Cooperatives Minister Subhash Deshmukh said.
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.
Operators like Chor Babulal supply weapons in constituencies where violence is necessary to win votes as well as money for many politicians. Rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa unravels how dirty election money reaches the voter.
'Yogi Adityanath is working for one caste only and suppressing the others,' Bihar Minister and NDA ally Mukesh Sahni tells M I Khan.
The Association for Democratic Reforms, an non-government organisation working for electoral reforms, while supporting Election Commission's order to seize unaccounted cash in poll-bound states, has noted that legitimate business transactions based on cash should not suffer.
DMK candidate Kathir Anand defeated All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam nominee AC Shanmugham in the bypoll by a narrow margin of 8,141 votes.
Authorities have seized 500 kg ammonium nitrate, used recently to carry out blasts in the Karnataka capital, from Kolar district of the state, officials said.
The BJP calling the Congress a "torn old party" moving towards a stage where its relevance and necessity will be completely lost.
The Election Commission has done good work in recent years but sometimes it takes decisions in over-anxiety, the Supreme Court on Friday said while referring to poll watchdog's order on cash seizure above Rs 2.5 lakh in transit ahead of Gujarat assembly elections.
Telangana and Rajasthan are the last states to go to the polls in the current round of assembly elections, which also covered Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram.
Why does the world's fastest-growing major consumer of energy fail to attract investments in oil and gas? This is a question worth pondering after private sector conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) failed to close a $15-billion downstream asset deal with Saudi Arabia's national oil company, Aramco. It's understandable if multi-billion dollar investments in oil and gas projects or deals involving state companies that need to traverse a complex bureaucracy at state and federal levels and the corridors of ministries unravel. However, Mukesh Ambani-run RIL, India's most successful energy company, is not typically known to fumble on closing deals (Ambani closed deals worth around Rs 2 trillion early last year in telecom and retail with blue chip investors).
The seizure of about Rs 40 lakh from two places in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh on Friday took the recovery of unaccounted money to the tune of Rs 27 crore, thereby creating a record of sorts in the run up to the forthcoming state assembly elections
Ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha legislator Sita Soren, the daughter-in-law of former Chief Minister Shibu Soren, on Tuesday surrendered to a court in Ranchi in a case of horse trading registered by CBI after the Election Commission rescinded the original notification for the 2012 Rajya Sabha polls for Jharkhand.
On Saturday, in locations including Korukkupet at R K Nagar allegations of cash distribution were made against some men, whose identity was not known immediately.
Asserting that Uttar Pradesh has undergone a complete transformation under his government, chief minister Yogi Adityanath said on Sunday that there have been no riots since 2017, strict action has been taken against the mafia and the state is in the frontline of implementing welfare schemes, ensuring the ease of doing business and fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Election Commission's decision is "unfortunate", highly arbitrary, motivated and "biased" and was taken at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party, she said in the letter.
A police team on patrolling duty near Vishwasundari bridge situated on the border of Varanasi and Chandauli district found these explosive materials lying abandoned in the jungle area late last night.
