Eleven states and Union territories -- Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand -- had a voter turnout lower than the national average of 67.40 percent in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
The Election Commission on Monday said the voter turnout in Jammu and Kashmir this time was the highest in a Lok Sabha election in the last 35 years with the Kashmir Valley witnessing a 'massive' 30 percentage point jump in poll participation compared to 2019.
other polls being held in the union territory, CEC Rajiv Kumar said.
The commission said enforcement authorities have seized Rs 4,650 crore even before polling begins for the Lok Sabha elections and it is the "higher than total seizures" made in the 2019 polls
Officials said the polling went off peacefully in all segments including special polling stations along the International Border and Line of Control (LoC) with no untoward incident reported from anywhere.
President Droupadi Murmu, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi and several other famous faces were seen at polling booths, exercising their franchise in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha polls on Saturday.
The opposition parties and some former CECs had opposed the move, saying it will go against the independence of the institution.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi led-NDA government in its third term must tackle the problem of unemployment in the country, especially in the unorganised sector and in small and medium enterprises, former NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said on Monday. Kumar also emphasised that the government now must finalise the four labour codes as it has been delayed beyond expectations. "We must recognise that post-COVID economic recovery has been a K-shaped recovery.
The elections will begin on April 19 followed by subsequent phases on April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20, May 25 and June 1.
West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose has also appealed to political parties and people from all walks of life to come together and organise a 'peace visit' to trouble-torn Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas district to show solidarity with the aggrieved women.
The bench asked senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for Congress leader Jaya Thakur, who sought a stay on the new law, to serve a copy of the petition to the Centre's counsel.
The Election Commission Wednesday directed the leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to refrain from making speeches on religious and communal lines, and opposition Congress from potentially divisive statements on the socioeconomic composition of the armed forces.
The poll panel said the seizures made since the polls were announced on October 9 are over seven times (Rs 239.15 crore) the seizures made in the previous assembly elections in these states in 2018.
Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Election Commission on Friday asked parties and their leaders to refrain from seeking votes on the basis of caste, religion and language, and not insult the devotee-deity relation or make any suggestion of a divine censure.
Addressing reporters at his residence soon after the meeting ended, Chowdhury said six names came up before the panel for the selection of the two ECs and the names of Sandhu and Kumar were finalised by a majority of members of the high-powered panel.
In a relief to homebuyers, assets in a real estate project that have been handed over to the allottee would be kept out of the liquidation process of the company, the latest amendment to the rules by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) has said. The notification dated February 12 said: "For the purposes of clause (e) of sub-section (4) of section 36, wherever the corporate debtor has given possession to an allottee in a real estate project, such asset shall not form a part of the liquidation estate of the corporate debtor." Real estate experts call it a "pragmatic approach" by the regulator. "However, there are many cases where possession has not been given because the property is stuck in insolvency.
The first time the Election Commission has taken cognisance of a model code of conduct complaint against a sitting prime minister.
Two vacancies of election commissioners came about following the resignation of Arun Goel on Friday and Anup Chandra Pandey's retirement on February 14.
'If, as happened in Baramulla during the 2024 Lok Sabha election, the youth in the Valley get triggered enough to jump into the wider fray, the end result would be difficult to predict, especially as the state's post-August 5, 2019 political format remains substantially fragmented and foggy,' points out Mohammad Sayeed Malik, the veteran commentator on Kashmir affairs.
The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned the Centre over the procedure adopted for the appointment of election commissioners and asked how six names were shortlisted from 200 within a few hours.
The Kirti Chakra awardees are Major Digvijay Singh Rawat of 21st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment (Special Forces), Major Deependra Vikram Basnet from the Sikh Regiment's fourth battalion and Havildar Pawan Kumar Yadav from the 21st battalion of the Mahar Regiment, according to the defence ministry.
The Bihar Police's Economic Offences Unit, which is probing the alleged National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (Undergraduate) (NEET-UG) paper leak case, on Saturday claimed to have obtained reference question papers of the test conducted by National Testing Agency (NTA) and planned to compare these with documents recovered from a flat in Patna during a search operation last month.
All parties in Jammu and Kashmir said the assembly election should be held with the parliamentary polls, but the entire administrative machinery said it cannot be done simultaneously
The BJP also wrote to the EC, urging it to postpone the date of counting as Sunday is a sacred day for Christians, and the entire day is devoted to church services throughout the state.
The three state assemblies have a strength of 60 members each.
The Kukis have already declared that they are not fielding any candidate in the parliamentary polls as an act of boycott.
Nearly Rs 3,400 crore (Rs 34 billion) in cash and other items were seized in the elections in 2022-2023, an increase of 835 per cent over 2017-2018.
Though electoral verdicts have historically been accepted, even though grudgingly, by all parties, there has been a sharper edge to the questions being raised by Opposition parties this time over the polling process, including the Election Commission.
Voting was underway on Friday in 102 Lok Sabha seats spread across 21 states and Union territories in the first of the seven phases of the world's largest electoral exercise, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging voters to exercise their franchise in record numbers.
A delegation of Congress leaders met the Election Commission and handed over complaints against the prime minister, alleging that he has trampled upon and violated the model code and directions of the poll body.
The Election Commission on Sunday ordered the suspension of Telangana Director General of Police (DGP) Anjani Kumar for violation of the model code of conduct amid the counting of votes, sources said.
She said I treated her like a bachchi. At another moment, she said I had gone to various people and 'bitched' about her. She also threatened to bring the entire matter to the PM's notice. A revealing excerpt from Subhash Chandra Garg's We Also Make Policy: An Insider's Account of How the Finance Ministry Functions.
The CEC said that in the case of Wayanad, the remainder of the term is more than a year.
'The Election Commission cannot be regulated by the government.'
While the Congress is in power in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh is ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, Telangana by the Bharat Rashtra Samithi and Mizoram by the Mizo National Front.
In some states, many women voters had enrolled themselves by their relationship with the male members of their family instead of providing their own names.
From Instagram to X, social media platforms, in the run-up to the polls have seen bitter poster wars and even bitter meme battles for political one-upmanship.
Voters include 8.4 crore men, 8.23 crore women and 11,371 from third gender. There are as many as 35.67 lakh first time voters, besides 3.51 crore young voters in the age group of 20-29 years.
'One of the principles of the MCC that you should not make hate speeches and create hatred between communities on the basis of religion was violated on a scale that was never seen before.' 'Religious symbols were very liberally used and speeches were made to polarise people on the basis of religion.'
Pronouncing the judgement, Justice Khanna said the court has rejected all the petitions, including those seeking resorting back to ballot papers in elections.
