Polling began at 7 am on Saturday for 44 seats in the fourth phase of the West Bengal assembly elections amid tight security, officials said.
Curfew was clamped in the entire Khargone city of Madhya Pradesh and 77 people were arrested after stones hurled at a Ram Navami procession triggered arson, officials said on Monday.
Priyanka Gandhi asked whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will remain silent on the matter.
The second phase of polling began Saturday morning on 20 constituencies in Jharkhand, which votes in five phases to elect 81 members of the legislative assembly.
Over one crore voters in West Bengal will decide the political fate of 342 candidates on Saturday, when 45 assembly constituencies go to polls in the fifth phase, amid a raging second wave of COVID-19.
Mamata Banerjee's party won 132 seats and was all set to pocket two more to post a hat-trick of wins, decimating a frail challenge from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, the Left Front and the Congress, officials said.
Days after Bharatiya Janata Party MP Arjun Singh rejoined the Trinamool Congress, at least 20 saffron party leaders in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri have tendered their resignation together from their party posts, accusing the district leadership of taking money in lieu of inducting members in a local panel, a party functionary said on Wednesday.
As the 240-seater prime minister attempts to moderate his image of hardline hero, he has made room for others to elbow in and that is what is happening. And that it what will continue to happen from inside the BJP, notes Aakar Patel.
The opposition INDIA bloc has written to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai over their social media platforms' alleged role in "aiding communal hatred" in the country and demanded that the platforms maintain neutrality in the upcoming elections.
In its election manifesto -- 'Sankalp Patra' -- the Bharatiya Janata Party has vowed to implement the Union Civil Code (UCC), maintain peace in the Northeast, among other key poll promises.
In an interview with Newsweek magazine of the US, Modi said for India, the relationship with China is significant.
The meeting took place at Bamni Kali Temple at Suri in Birbhum district on Saturday which Adhikari visited ahead of Kali Puja celebrations.
With polls to elect the 18th Lok Sabha approaching, district poll panels are fixing the rates for expenses as part of the election expenditure monitoring process.
Some farmer outfits on Friday threw their weight behind the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) woman constable who allegedly slapped actor and Bharatiya Janata Party MP-elect Kangana Ranaut, saying the entire sequence leading to the incident needs to be properly investigated.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday accused NIA officials of attacking villagers in Purba Medinipur district, the BJP hit back at her saying that the attack on the NIA officials is Sandeshkhalli 2.0 orchestrated by the state.
Modi also lauded party workers in the state, saying each of them is a champion
Pezeshkian gained the attention of people for his stance against the crackdown on the 2009 pro-democracy protests and the violence perpetrated by the notorious morality police in 2022 after Mahsa Amini's death.
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.
Sources in the Special Cell said that now arrests are likely to follow across the country.
Modi also virtually flagged off a new train between Antagarh in Kanker district and Raipur and kickstarted the distribution of cards of the Centre's Ayushman Bharat scheme to beneficiaries in the state.
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
Asking the Congress members, who were on their feet, to maintain the decorum of the House and not show placards, Birla said they should let the House function.
Adhikari, leader of the opposition in the West Bengal assembly, denied the charge, saying that he had recently gone to Mehta's residence in Delhi regarding a case related to "post-poll violence" in the state but "could not meet him in person".
Former Chief Election Commissioner T S Krishnamurthy has pitched for single-phase elections and substantially curtailing public campaigning time in future polls.
Eleven people died during a havan at Beleshwar Mahadev Jhulelal temple in Madhya Pradesh's Indore after they fell into a well as its cover caved-in under the weight of a huge crowd, while three others got fatally electrocuted during a Ram Navami procession in Rajasthan's Kota.
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.
In an address at an election rally in this southern-most part of Mizoram bordering Myanmar, Singh said violence is no solution to any problem and the two communities in Manipur must talk to each other to improve the situation in the troubled state.
Unidentified miscreants hurled a stone at the Chief Minister on Saturday night near Vivekananda School Centre in Vijayawada's Singh Nagar, which injured his left temple when he was canvassing for polls.
With the Congress presidential polls round the corner, party leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said decisions, including that of one-man, one-post, taken at the Chintan Shivir at Udaipur in Rajasthan earlier this year are expected to be followed.
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."
The violent protests forced the Nagaland CM to call off the elections.
Senior Assam Congress leader Debabrata Saikia has filed a police complaint against Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for his alleged "hateful statement" such as Lok Sabha MP and former party president Sonia Gandhi's "residence should be burnt".
BJP leader Anil Vij on Tuesday skipped Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini's swearing-in ceremony where, according to the outgoing CM M L Khattar, he would also have been inducted in the cabinet.
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.
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.
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.
All three agreed to have the proceedings heard in English and each of them nodded that they understood the charges of first-degree murder and conspiring to murder Nijjar, the report said.
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.
Zoramthanga said people fleeing from Myanmar, Bangladesh and Manipur feel safe in Mizoram which is ruled by his party.
It's just not a date. It's just not about selecting a candidate. It's not about helping some candidate win. It's about expressing emotion, after ten years, that could reach out in India and beyond it, notes Sheela Bhatt.
