Former Chief Election Commissioner T S Krishnamurthy has pitched for single-phase elections and substantially curtailing public campaigning time in future polls.
A Trinamool Congress legislator on Sunday threatened to not support any bill tabled by the government in the West Bengal Assembly in the future and abstain from voting in the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls in the state if 'atrocities' on his loyalists allegedly by a rival faction continued, even as the Bharatiya Janata Party said the collapse of the Mamata Banerjee government was just a matter of time.
The SEC claimed that BSF could not provide central forces to more than 10,000 booths.
When the assembly election comes around later this year with Nayab Singh Saini, from the OBCs, at the helm, the sense of victimhood non-Jats feel will propel the BJP into power again, predicts Aditi Phadnis.
Addressing a press conference in Siliguri as part of the BJP's 'Shahid Samman Yatra', Union minister John Barla said he would discuss the issue at the appropriate level to bring to fruition for creating a separate state.
The BSF opened fire in Pakharpora near Charar-e-Sharif area to quell stone-pelting protesters in which at least one person was killed and five injured.
Modi, while addressing a rally in Barasat, said whatever happened with women in Sandeshkhali "is a matter of shame".
A veritable political `storm in a tea cup' has arisen over Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee's assertions on Wednesday that all in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were "not bad" and there are many who "do not support the BJP".
In the wake of communal violence in West Bengal and Bihar, Sibal had on Sunday questioned the "silence" of Prime Minister Modi over the matter, and said "let not 2024 general elections be the reason" for the violence.
The move came after a nine-member delegation of Bharatiya Janata Party MPs from West Bengal met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and sought his intervention and action against the perpetrators of the crime.
Invoking its Constitutional powers, the Election Commission on Saturday put in place certain restrictions, including extending the 'silence period' from 48 hours to 72 hours, for the fifth phase of polling in West Bengal after violence in Cooch Behar district.
Security measures have been heightened in view of the violence in the previous phases, particularly the death of five people in Cooch Behar in the fourth phase of polling on April 10, an Election Commission official said.
As many as 586 candidates are in the fray in this phase with the seats spread across Saharanpur, Bijnor, Moradabad, Sambhal, Rampur, Amroha, Budaun, Bareilly and Shahjahanpur.
Sacked Rajasthan minister Rajendra Gudha on Wednesday made public three pages of the purported "red diary" which he has claimed contains the details of financial misdeeds of the Congress government and cited their contents to allege corruption in Rajasthan Cricket Association election.
Over 84 lakh voters in West Bengal will decide the political fate of 283 candidates on Thursday, when 35 assembly constituencies go to polls in the eighth and final phase, amid a raging second wave of Covid-19.
As the curtain falls on the campaign for the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat on Wednesday, April 24, a ringside view of the closing ceremonies.
Claiming that the BJP is "planning to change Bengal into Gujarat", she said, "I am ready to go to jail but will not allow it to happen."
But the rebels were well-prepared and violence started almost simultaneously with the voting. Indiscriminate firing from the Maoists disrupted polling in two booths, while an improvised explosive device blast left three policemen injured in another. The Naxalites triggered the blast in Borkha village under Bhejji police station limits in Dantewada. A helicopter has been requisitioned to evacuate the three injured, police sources said
Polls opened at 7 am local time and would close at 5 pm with some 12,845 polling stations being set up throughout the country for 15.9 million voters, who will choose a successor to President Maithripala Sirisina.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday received wholehearted support from a group of women from the troubled Sandeshkhali area who met her after a Trinamool Congress rally in Kolkata, party sources said.
Sharif, the three-time former premier, said that there is a need for all the political parties to sit together and form a government to pull Pakistan out of its difficulties.
Infighting between Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot has been out in the open throughout the Congress term.
It was curtains down on the high-decibel campaigning for the fourth phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls as sparring among political rivals intensified during the last-minute canvassing on Monday.
Voting is being held at 11,860 polling stations spread over 11 assembly constituencies each in Murshidabad and Birbhum, six in Malda and seven in north Kolkata.
The voter turnout in DUSU polls on Thursday was recorded at 39.90 per cent, over four percentage points down from the last year.
The violent protests forced the Nagaland CM to call off the elections.
The notice cited Ghosh's alleged remarks that "if someone crosses his limits then you have seen what happened in Sitalkuchi. There will be Sitalkuchi in several places."
'It will be the end of the Congress after the Lok Sabha election.' 'Many Congressmen and even Communists will move to the BJP.'
A high voter turnout was recorded in West Bengal, Assam Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry assembly elections on Tuesday. The massive polling exercise following COVID-19 health protocol and involving lakhs of personnel began at 7 am and the last hour from 6 pm to 7 pm was set aside for COVID-19 patients and those under isolation. The counting of votes in the states will be held on May 2.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday expressed apprehension that the 2024 Lok Sabha elections would be the last opportunity for the people to save democracy, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi might prefer dictatorship in case his party wins the upcoming polls.
Around 30 per cent polling was recorded till noon on Tuesday in 72 constituencies spread over 19 districts of Chhattisgarh where voting for the second and last phase of Assembly polls is underway.
The ministry also said it has asked the states and UTs to maintain law and order, peace and public tranquillity.
Pakistan's election commission has expressed its inability to hold general elections within three months due to legal, constitutional and logistical challenges, according to a media report on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Union ministry of home affairs to provide two additional companies of the Central Armed Police Forces to secure every polling booth during the Tripura municipal polls.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has pinned its hopes on the old guard to ensure victory in next month's assembly elections in Chhattisgarh as it gave tickets to 11 sitting MLAs and renominated 13 leaders who lost in the 2018 polls.
As round one of the seven-phase Lok Sabha election began in 91 constituencies across the length and breadth of India, from the hills of Kashmir to the islands of Andaman and Nicobar, reports of unrest and irregularities cast shadows over the world's biggest poll process.
The opposition Trinamool Congress and Communist Party of India-Marxist failed to open their account in the AMC.
The ruling BJP won three assembly seats and the Congress bagged one in the high-stakes by-elections in Tripura on Sunday, officials said.
As the new year arrives, the Bharatiya Janata Party's finds itself on the cusp of the most consequential cycle of state polls since the 2019 Lok Sabha elections as the results will tell if the road ahead in its bid for a third straight term at the Centre is getting any bumpier or a strong opposition challenge remains elusive.
He added that while he is not too worried about a constitutional crisis, he is worried about further diminishment of the basic reputation of the voting process in the US. There might be a "significant minority" of voters rejecting the election result on November 8.
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