As round one of the seven-phase Lok Sabha election began in 91 constituencies across the length and breadth of India, from the hills of Kashmir to the islands of Andaman and Nicobar, reports of unrest and irregularities cast shadows over the world's biggest poll process.
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.
'This is total fraud. You are showing me the slip of my vote but not counting it so this is fraud.'
However, scores of displaced Kashmiri Pandits in Jammu were unable to vote on Monday due to their names missing from the electoral rolls.
'When honest, wealthy people come forward to serve India, people should feel proud and welcome them.'
The tribal vote in Madhya Pradesh is crucial in any election. The BJP's loss in the 2018 assembly election has prompted it to take remedial action.
Addressing a gathering of around 6,000 in-charges of 'Shakti Kendras,' each comprising two to three booth-level areas, at Marine Drive, the prime minister said that Kerala has the potential to influence who will be in power in Delhi.
'BJP's last resort to win the election is to divide people into caste, religion, creed. but it doesn't happen in Maharashtra.'
Women voters have been outnumbering male voters in Mizoram for the past few years, but paradoxically there are no women representatives in the state legislature for years together.
Seven TMC MLAs within the Krishnanagar Lok Sabha constituency of party MP Mahua Moitra have written to Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee demanding her removal as Nadia Uttar organisational district president. The lawmakers allege that Moitra has been ignoring Assembly representatives while undertaking party programmes and indulging anti-social elements, causing significant damage to the party's image. The MP has responded by dismissing the complaint as "district-level rubbish."
Veteran Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Wednesday said he does not need an invitation from anyone to visit the newly-constructed temple in Ayodhya as Lord Ram resides in his heart.
'Young people say they know all this emphasis on Hindu-Muslim differences is politically motivated.' 'If you stop watching TV and turn off social media, you'll find the situation on the ground different.'
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Wednesday said the fresh revision of electoral rolls in Jammu and Kashmir does not disturb the schedule or conduct part of polls and the poll panel is aware that there is a "vacuum" in the Union territory which needs to be filled.
At places in the border districts of Barmer and Jaisalmer, people walked miles through the desert to cast their votes.
As many as 19.31 lakh applications have been registered so far as part of the ongoing summary revision of electoral rolls in Maharashtra and voters would have the opportunity to enrol themselves until the last date of filing of nomination papers, the Election Commission of India said in Mumbai on Tuesday.
Pawar acknowledged that his political career faced challenges, including a year lost to the COVID-19 pandemic and another year spent out of power, leaving him with only three active years.
It keeps getting harder every day for the government to drive its narrative that ample jobs are being created. They sound increasingly silly as they try to defend the indefensible, says Mahesh Vyas.
'In this assembly election, Muslims here will vote for one who works, but also one who safeguards their identity.' 'Their existence is more important they feel, than a faulty light meter. So yes, a Muslim representative will make a difference.'
Even when the Congress is facing the toughest challenge in its long history, it shows no sign of turning a new leaf and injecting internal democracy to revive its fortunes, argues Virendra Kapoor.
BIf you know this BJP, it will now go forward to Jharkhand and Maharashtra as if June 2024 never happened, notes Shekhar Gupta.
According to the report, there are 16 sitting MPs and MLAs who have declared cases related to rape under Indian Penal Code Section 376, which carries a minimum sentence of 10 years and can be extend to life imprisonment.
He lived in the Pittsburgh suburb of Bethel Park, about 56 km south of the Trump rally site where law enforcement officials said he fired at Trump, the presumptive presidential candidate of the Republican Party.
The NGO challenges the validity of a provision of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023.
If Maratha activist Manoj Jarange Patil drops a hint of supporting or opposing a particular coalition on the eve of polling on November 20, things may change overnight.
Buch, under a cloud over allegations of conflict of interest levelled by United States-based short-seller Hindenburg, was asked to appear before the PAC, which is reviewing the performance of the market regulator.
The CAA, enacted by the BJP-led government at the Centre in 2019, aims at granting Indian citizenship to persecuted non-Muslim migrants, including Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Christians, from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who entered India before December 31, 2014.
Vijay has a lot of young and middle-aged women fans, but as voters, they are possibly now with the DMK, or remain with the AIADMK. Recapturing this constituency would have helped Vijay's political launch and the GOAT script and dialogues could have gone a long way in helping out. But the kind of script and screenplay and the unusually and equally unnecessary long run-time (3 hours, 3 minutes) that GOAT offers takes the film experience over the heads of those that are not familiar with secret agents and uranium theft in Tamil cinema, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'As far as skilled immigration is concerned, the US needs Indian skills and Indian talent, and there are no two opinions about it even among US companies.'
The Supreme Court is scheduled to pronounce its verdict on Friday on a batch of pleas seeking complete cross-verification of votes cast using electronic voting machines (EVMs) with voter verifiable paper audit trail, or VVPAT.
India's Harmanpreet Singh was crowned as Men's Player Of The Year and his former compatriot PR Sreejesh was named Men's Goalkeeper Of The Year, announced the International Hockey Federation (FIH) on Friday.
There is no use of the BJP targeting the likes of Mamata Banerjee and M K Stalin, directly by the party's political bosses, both in Delhi and the respective state capitals, or even using the Raj Bhavans to fire those salvos from. Successive elections have proved that it's counter-productive, if anything. But the BJP is yet to understand it, acknowledge it, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
A significant enrolment of young voters in the electoral rolls has resulted in the unusually high voter turnout in the state assembly elections, Chief Election Commissioner V S Sampath has said.
Reflecting the woes of transgenders who have remained social 'untouchables' with restricted access to education and jobs, only a minuscule 2,996 transgenders in Tamil Nadu enrolled themselves in the 5.3 crore strong voters list.
Please promise, especially those millions who trust you with their hard-earned money, never to let your voting preferences determine your actions on the markets. The most appalling and scary phenomenon was fund houses and brokerages going out on election yatras and writing copious reports promising more than 300 for the BJP. That was your wish as voters. Your investors are paying for it now, points out Shekhar Gupta.
In the run-up to the polls, a survey has revealed that better employment opportunities is the single most important issue for citizens and that the government has fared below average in this aspect.
The government in its application has virtually accepted all the demands made by the FIFA
Congress president Sonia Gandhi Tuesday appointed former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad as the party's campaign committee chief in the union territory, but he declined the offer.
Briefing reporters, Nadda said his party has proposed that if holding the three-tier polls together was not possible immediately, then Lok Sabha and assembly elections can be held together first.
The assembly polls in Maharashtra will be held in a single phase while Jharkhand polls will be held in two phases, the Election Commission of India announced on Tuesday.
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday is learnt to have cleared a bill on electoral reforms, including the one to link electoral roll with Aadhaar on a voluntary basis to root out multiple enrolments.
