The Maharashtra Assembly elections saw a fierce contest between two coalitions and six major players. Despite securing over one lakh votes, 58 candidates lost the election. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) led by Sharad Pawar suffered the most, with 22 candidates losing despite receiving over one lakh votes. Other prominent losing candidates included former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan and senior Congress leaders Balasaheb Thorat and Dhiraj Deshmukh. The Mahayuti coalition, comprising the Shiv Sena, BJP, and Ajit Pawar-led NCP, retained power by winning 230 out of 288 assembly seats.
While at some places people who had turned up at polling booths early in the morning left without casting their vote after waiting in line for a long time, Sena-UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray alleged that the process was slowed down deliberately.
Masoodi said all the participants are against giving voting rights to non-locals as "it will be tantamount to the disenfranchisement of the local voters."
A sitting MLA and Bharatiya Janata Party candidate allegedly broke an electronic voting machine (EVM) and attacked a polling officer inside a booth during voting in Odisha which recorded a voter turnout of over 60.97 per cent in six Lok Sabha seats and 42 assembly segments, officials said.
"I follow Ramayana, Quran, Bible and Guru Granth Sahib... I do not do drama by visiting poor people's homes to eat food brought from outside," she said.
Three Lok Sabha MPs, including its former Telangana president Bandi Sanjay Kumar, figured on Sunday in the BJP's first list of 52 candidates.
EPS has had its way on most things, alliance-wise. A week earlier, he reiterated that he would not re-admit OPS and Sasikala Natarajan back in the party. It was a message not just to detractors in the AIADMK. It was even more so for the BJP leadership in Delhi. Even more important for the AIADMK was their demand for accepting EPS as the chief ministerial candidate of any alliance that the party would form, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The principal opposition party though appeared content securing 99 of the 543 seats in the 2024 national elections as against its all-time low of 44 in 2014 and then 52 in 2019.
'During Eid Muslims get Eidi, but Opposition parties never gave that to them.' 'When PM Modi is giving Eidi to Muslims Opposition leaders are getting upset.'
New software will ensure that anyone with more than one election ID has to surrender the other cards.
Delhi's crime rate against women stood at 144.4 in 2022 -- the highest among all states and Union Territories.
Gene Hackman had a long and rich career, playing leading and supporting roles in many Hollywood films.
Sinha, while congratulating the EC for ensuring peaceful voting, alleged that the sense of fear and terror did prevail at some places.
Queries like this, which run into about 2,500 every day, are raining at the helpline centre set up for the first time by the Election Commission in the poll-bound national capital."The centre has been receiving 2,000-2,500 calls daily," says Delhi's Chief Electoral Officer Satbir Sailas Bedi. Set up under the direct supervision of Joint Chief Electoral Officer Uday Bakshi, it has different lines with a common number 011-47617500.
The Election Commission on Wednesday changed the date of polling for the Rajasthan assembly elections from November 23 to November 25 in view of demands for a change given "large-scale" weddings in the state that day.
Congress leader Ghulam Ahmad Mir on Thursday promised that LPG cylinders will be provided in Jharkhand at a subsidised rate of Rs 450 even for 'infiltrators', sparking a political row in the midst of assembly elections in the eastern state.
Days after rules were issued allowing linkage of Aadhaar with voters list to weed out duplicate entries, the Election Commission has warned of 'severe' disciplinary action against electoral registration officers for any leakages of physical forms filled by electors to share their Aadhaar details.
The petition filed by advocate Srinivasan has also sought a direction to poll panel to take effective steps to restrain political parties from making promises of freebies during the pre-election period.
The repolling started at 7 am amid tight security with four central forces personnel deployed in each booth, besides state police. Till 11 am, 10.9 per cent voter turnout was recorded.
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.
Movie star-Minister Suresh Gopi visited Thane over the weekend to campaign for the ruling Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra.
A freebie once granted can hardly be discontinued. All that can happen is to substitute it with a bigger freebie, notes A K Bhattacharya.
Their lists show that a significant number of contenders are closely related to the current ministers, legislators or MPs, including their sons or daughters, wives and brothers or sisters.
'If you look at the average age of all our candidates, you will notice that their average age is between 35 and 40. It is a kind of revolution that the MNS is bringing in Maharashtra.'
Dhoni endorses 42 brands to Bachchan's 41 and SRK's 34.
Kumar also hinted that the Maharashtra elections could be held after Diwali.
Voters can be relied on to punish a party which makes reckless promises without actually implementing them, asserts Virendra Kapoor.
The BJP and Congress have called out the 'Delhi model' as a hoax, built on sustained propaganda when the ground reality is different.
US prosecutors' case against Gautam Adani and others may stumble on the extraterritorial application of American law.
Kumar was apprehended with the help of sketches and CCTV camera footage, senior superintendent of police Anurag Arya said.
'Those who have wronged or harassed the Maratha community should be taught a lesson through the ballot'
'Just today a shopkeeper I went to was saying how bad business is. He must have been a BJP supporter.' 'He finally said, "It's a good thing there's an NDA government, not a BJP government, 'they' had become too big for their boots,".'
Based on the recommendation of the Election Commission (EC), the Union law ministry on Friday amended Rule 93(2)(a) of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, to restrict the type of "papers" or documents open to public inspection.
The monthly Rs 2500 payment for poor women is expected to cost Rs 11,000 crore while the pension scheme of Rs 2000 for every senior citizen will cost around Rs 4100 crore. The Yamuna clean up will cost over Rs 10,000 crore while a similar amount is required to upgrade Delhi's hospitals. Ultimately, the new BJP government will have no choice but to ask the centre for financial support, notes Rashme Sehgal.
Should not entertain him, must be removed: Bhaichung Bhutia criticises AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey for corruption, mismanagement
The ruling Mahayuti alliance in Maharashtra is heavily banking upon a six to 10 per cent shift in voters -- mostly women -- in its favour to return to power with anywhere between 160 and 170 assembly seats, say four MLAs belonging to Eknath Shinde's Shiv Sena.
The two earlier visits in mid-January and end of January of the observers led to the detection of a huge number of false, dead and shifted voters.
Shobhana Kamineni, vice chairperson of Apollo Hospitals, and a former president of the Confederation of Indian Industry, is unhappy after discovering her name deleted from the voters' list in Telangana.
The opposition parties were demanding a division of votes as they had moved a motion to send the Bill to a select committee, which was rejected by voice vote.
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