In the battle for 2024, the place is hogging the limelight, primarily because of Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, who according to some opinion polls, may turn out to be the dark horse when votes are counted on June 4.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday vowed to thwart alleged attempts to rob Dalits and backward classes of reservations by the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) which he accused of 'enslavement' and performing 'mujra' for Muslim vote bank.
The incident took place on the night of November 1. Following the incident, hundreds of BHU students had held a protest on the campus and demanded that the entry of outsiders be banned.
While people voted in a fifth round that will set the tone as this election rounds into the straight, and while Modi on the stump chews the cud of personal grievances and hackneyed promises that have long since passed their use-by date, there is a rogue wave rising -- what damage it will do, we will know 16 days from today, observes Prem Panicker.
Forty-two of the 102 Lok Sabha seats going to polls in the general election's first phase are constituencies that have three or more candidates facing criminal cases, according to a poll rights body.
'Nine years ago, I had met Akhilesh at a function in Mumbai. Since then, our friendship has continued.'
When asked what transpired at the informal meeting of the alliance leaders in the evening, the Delhi chief minister said his party sought seat-sharing discussions for all the states.
Besides the national capital, polling for the sixth round of the marathon seven-phase elections will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir.
The suspense over whether Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will contest the polls from Amethi and Raebareli respectively continued.
'Modi 3.0 will have more balanced policies like one saw in Modi's first term.'
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and his convoy will spend the night on a farm in Bhadohi as the district administration has denied permission for his stay at a government college citing a police recruitment exam, a party member said on Thursday.
While conditions have improved over the last decade in western UP, there are still unfulfilled needs.
Leaders of several Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties met on Saturday to take stock of the opposition's preparations leading up to the June 4 counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections, and claimed they will get more than 295 seats, enough for them to form the next government.
'Episodes of targeted attacks on Muslims established that for a section of people and, sadly, even officials of the State, the election results conveyed no lessons.' 'Opposition parties must not be hesitant in speaking out whenever the mob with tacit State support targets Muslims,' asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times.
People in these villages routinely encounter big cats that stray into their farms from the adjoining Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, a bustling habitat for the Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris).
As Election 2024 hurtles towards result day in a medley of mangalsutra, mujra, mutton, machli and other barbs, these may sound like character names from Hindi comics of yore. Instead, these are the mocking, sometimes vicious monikers given by political rivals to each other.
'People in politics have lost the value of being connected to their own people.' 'Now it's all about vote share, vote bank, how many parties can you break and make them join you.'
'The Congress in the past backed the demand, but will not support it now since the SP opposes any division of UP.'
The BJP cited the amendments to the Representation of People Act, 1951 and the relevant portions of the Reserve Bank of India Act and the Income Tax Act for not revealing its donors.
Besides the picture of Akhilesh Yadav, the poster also carries the picture of party state spokesperson Fakhrul Hasan 'Chand', who earlier in July on the birthday of the SP chief had put up a similar banner outside the SP office.
A delegation of opposition party leaders on Friday met the top brass of Election Commission to raise its concerns over poll code violations by the ruling party leaders, and also flagged concerns over delay in release of voter turnout figures for the first two phases of the polls.
When the Bharatiya Janata Party's Mukesh Dalal was declared elected unopposed to the Lok Sabha from Surat on Monday, he became the first candidate to achieve the feat from Gujarat since its formation 64 years ago though the erstwhile state of Saurashtra saw a similar instance in 1951.
The DMK leader's reference made was to one of the INDIA bloc meetings in which Nitish Kumar reportedly stressed on use of Hindi.
Opposition parties Nationalist Congress Party and Samajwadi Party on Wednesday demanded reservation for OBCs in the women's reservation bill and questioned the reason for calling a special session when the bill cannot be implemented before census and delimitation.
Shah on Sunday tweeted a picture of their meeting and welcomed the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party leader to the NDA.
Raising slogans of 'Inquilab Zindabad' and 'Kejriwal Zindabad', Aam Aadmi Party workers and leaders reached the area's metro station in groups, with the party calling for a march to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's residence on Lok Kalyan Marg for a 'gherao'.
Campaigning ended on Wednesday evening for 102 Lok Sabha seats across 21 states and Union territories which will go to polls in the first phase on April 19 with top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) making a last-gasp effort to woo voters.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Maneka Gandhi on Saturday indicated that her son Varun Gandhi's writings that were sometimes critical of the government may have cost him the party's Lok Sabha ticket from Pilibhit but asserted that he would do very well even without it.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
SP president Akhilesh Yadav and RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary announced the tie-up on social media for the elections later this year.
MP-MLA court magistrate Shobit Bansal awarded the three the maximum seven-year sentence.
'Commentators have said that dealing with allies as equals will make Modi more sensitive.' 'Remember that the people Modi is dealing with are equally autocratic in their own lairs.' 'Further, Modi always has handy the threat of dissolving Parliament and calling for fresh polls.' 'Most of his own party, and certainly his allies and opponents having blown their budgets of efforts and resources in the just concluded elections, have no stomach for this.' 'They are all greatly looking forward to the loaves and fishes of office on offer.' 'That gives Modi an unbeatable advantage in any push-comes-to-shove situation,' explains Shreekant Sambrani.
Banda chief judicial magistrate Bhagwan Das Gupta appointed Garima Singh, additional chief judicial magistrate (MP-MLA Court Banda) as the investigating officer in the case, the official said.
The BJP attacked Kejriwal after he refused to comment on the Maliwal "assault" matter during a press conference in Lucknow. He was flanked by Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav and AAP Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh.
The Bharatiya Janata Party suffered stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states, partial poll results showed Tuesday, forcing the party to rely on allies to form the government after a bitter and divisive election that was projected as a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity.
24 hours was all it took for the Congress to overturn its decision to boycott the TV debates on the exit poll results. Sudhir Bisht offers an explanation.
Asked how many seats INDIA bloc will get, Gandhi said, "Have you heard Sidhu Moose Wala's song '295'? So 295 (seats)."
Rai also asserted that the Congress will win the upcoming Assembly elections in all five states.
'Do not conspire against us, don't betray us. They should tell us straight that they don't need Samajwadis'
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