The SEC, which held a meeting on Sunday evening, went through reports of vote-tampering and violence which affected polling in many places, and passed the order, an official said.
RJD president Lalu Prasad's daughter Rohini Acharya has entered the fray to wrest back her father's erstwhile pocket borough.
The court directed the State Election Commission, the state government and the central government to file affidavits dealing with all the allegations made in three petitions alleging malpractices.
The sources said Bose briefed Shah about the prevailing situation and his assessment of the polls marred by violence that claimed 15 lives.
The hapless voters fervently hope that they get to make a more equal choice in the next election and political discourse in the country becomes positive and more enlightened. One wonders if the masses would become more politically aware to discern good intent and performance from gimmickry, notes Biswajit Dasgupta.
'Rather than criticising the kind of candidates fielded by political parties from our living rooms, NOTA in a sense implores the electorate to say this by turning up in person at a polling booth to ensure their protest is registered.'
At Thamnapokpi under Moirang constituency in Bishnupur district, armed men fired several rounds in the air near a polling booth prompting voters to flee, police said on Friday, adding additional security personnel were rushed to the spot to contain the situation.
Shares of Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) rose nearly 1 per cent on Tuesday, hitting an intraday high of Rs 2,986.05 per share, after most brokerages reacted positively to the company's March quarter (Q4FY24) results. The bullish outlook stems from Reliance Jio's potential tariff hikes, given the competitive landscape, along with slow but steady improvement in the oil-to-chemical (O2C) vertical.
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.
The SEC claimed that BSF could not provide central forces to more than 10,000 booths.
Tension was palpable in the area, and a large police contingent was deployed to prevent any further flare-up.
Several pollsters have predicted that the Congress may have an edge in Karnataka, which is BJP's southern citadel, in a hung assembly with a couple of them even projecting that the grand old party may get a majority on its own.
In the last assembly elections in 2018, the state recorded a voter turnout of 74.06 per cent. The Election Commission has set a target of at least 75 per cent turnout in each constituency this time.
Voting came to an end for the Karnataka assembly elections on Wednesday at 6 pm with data showing a voter turnout of 65.69 per cent an hour ago.
A total of 74,44,260 voters will exercise their franchise using ballot papers to elect their representatives.
Total 171 votes were cast in a booth in Assam's Dima Hasao district, even though 90 people were eligible to exercise their franchise, officials said on Monday, revealing a massive irregularity.
As many as 624 candidates are in the fray in this round of voting being held in Pilibhit, Lakhimpur Kheri, Sitapur, Hardoi, Unnao, Lucknow, Rae Bareli, Banda, and Fatehpur districts.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is ahead in 20 seats in Manipur, with Chief Minister N Biren Singh leading by a handsome margin of more than 16,000 votes against his nearest Congress rival in Heingang constituency, Election Commission data showed.
Polling was by and large peaceful in the bypolls for three Lok Sabha and seven assembly seats spread across five states and Delhi on Thursday barring an incident of stabbing of a policeman in Tripura, where polling was the highest at 76.62 per cent.
A repoll was held in the constituency on May 31 after an Election Commission confirmed that large-scale electoral malpractices had taken place during the April 26 poll.
After facing a drubbing in four states, Congress on Monday got some good news in Mizoram where it powered to a two thirds majority in the assembly elections snapping up 27 of the 40 seats, while the opposition Mizo National Front secured four.
The West Bengal State Election Commission on Sunday postponed counting of votes in the election to Bidhannagar and Asansol municipal corporations following allegations of large-scale violence, even as opposition parties demanded fresh elections.
In a flip-flop, the Election Commission on Friday said exit polls will be banned till May 16, the day of counting, but soon after clarified that the prohibition will be in place only till the end of the last phase of polling on May 12.
In a terse message to the ruling party, Priyanka in a Hindi tweet said, 'The goons of the BJP involved in 'cheerharan' of the democracy should hear that women will become pradhans, block pramukhs, MLAs, MPs and prime minister, and defeat the government, which gives patronage to those committing atrocities against women.'
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) on Thursday won two more seats in Kandy and Trincolamee districts, but still fell short of two-thirds majority it was seeking to carry out constitutional changes.
The ruling Congress on Wednesday swept the urban body polls in Punjab, winning six municipal corporations, emerging as the largest party in the seventh and bagging most of the 109 municipal council and nagar panchayats.
Jayalalithaa, in a statement in Chennai, alleged that DMK activists, accompanied by rowdies and anti-social elements, had rigged polling in all the 155 wards in the Chennai Corporation with the help of police
The LDF was also leading in 10 out of the 14 district panchayats and 108 block panchayats of the total of 152, according to the State Election Commission figures.
Re-polling was necessitated by complaints of electoral malpractices and defects in electronic voting machines.
'Hopefully, the new majority government will give the country a fool-proof electoral system,' says Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
There will be eight more phases of Panchayat polls in Jammu and Kashmir.
The voter turnout in the first three phases of the civic polls in the valley has been low.
The first phase of the polls in the Kashmir Valley saw 8.3 per cent turnout on October 8 while only 3.4 per cent of the electorate exercised their franchise in the second phase held two days later.
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.
'EVMs are absolutely credible, they are robust.' 'It's only a calculator with certain instructions. And the sim card inside an EVM is burnt and cannot be reprogrammed.' 'Besides, the machines are circulated among various states. No machine is allowed to remain in one state after an election.' 'By far, it is one of the finest innovations India should be proud of.'
'EVMs did not accept votes polled for any party other than BJP'. The BSP chief said that the results in UP and Uttarakhand were surprising and not palatable to anyone.
The top court also directed the SEC not to declare those candidates who have won unopposed as winners.
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