Polling in 70 constituencies began at 8 am and will conclude at 5 pm, except in nine polling booths in the Maoist-affected Bindranawagarh seat in Gariaband district, where voting began at 7 for security reasons, a poll official said.
Reacting to the results, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that in the by-elections held on 13 seats in seven states, the people of the country have given their support to the INDIA bloc.
With six children of Karnataka ministers in the Lok Sabha poll arena, the campaign scene is getting spiced up in the high-stakes elections for the ruling Congress in the state.
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
It's just not a date. It's just not about selecting a candidate. It's not about helping some candidate win. It's about expressing emotion, after ten years, that could reach out in India and beyond it, notes Sheela Bhatt.
The only visible hint of the impending election is the hoardings put up by local election authorities, urging citizens to exercise their franchise.
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.
It is in power on its own only in three states -- Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Telangana -- with a big question mark on whether it can even stake claim to be head of the INDIA bloc.
The elections to 32 assembly constituencies in Sikkim were held simultaneously with the first phase of Lok Sabha elections on April 19.
'Nobody is speaking up for Muslims today.' 'Secular parties too have calmed down because they feel this will hurt the Hindu vote (bank).' 'In this scenario, where does a Muslim go?'
'We wanted to come out with accurate figure rather than speculating. This is not uncommon and we are not late
The explosion happened at an ID distribution and voter registration centre about 10 am on Sunday morning in PD6.
For India to view the new Sri Lankan leadership only through the prism of the past or through their narrow view on China, is fraught with possibilities that should be avoided, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The 2024 election results will lead to much intense targeting of Modi, more intense debates, many more breakdowns in Parliament and many more movements on the streets.' 'The results have hit Modi's standing, and the politics of the Opposition parties will be sharply focused to ensure that Modi doesn't get back his charisma of being 'invincible' with help of State power.' Sheela Bhatt looks at the political situation through the prism of 2024 Lok Sabha election results.
Despite declining by three percentage points in 2022-23 (FY23) compared to FY19, Odisha's unemployment rate remains higher than the average in India.
On the Opposition's poll promise of statehood restoration, Shah said, "I want to ask Farooq Abdullah and Rahul Gandhi, who is going to restore the statehood. You cannot give it back. Why are you misleading the public?"
In India elections are never fought in a straight line. It's fought on many issues, at many levels, with multiple emotions and with a bit of good luck, too. Sheela Bhatt reports from Rajasthan.
In an address from the lectern on the steps of 10 Downing Street on a rainy London evening, Britain's first Prime Minister of Indian heritage confirmed a summer poll in six weeks' time and that the Parliament would soon be dissolved after he formally informed King Charles III of the election timeline.
'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.
BJP Delhi president Manoj Tiwari said the 'AAP is loosing elections' that is why it is raising such issues.
'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.
French organisers turned Paris into an open-air Olympic playground where everyone was invited, with or without a ticket.
The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) on Sunday elected its first Dalit president from the Left-backed groups after nearly three decades.
It is crucial to electoral democracy that the exercise of freedom to vote is not subject to undue influence, the Supreme Court said on Thursday while striking down as unconstitutional the electoral bonds scheme for political funding.
According to the police, these villages have never seen unfurling or hoisting of the national flag since 1947, but that will change when its residents will join the rest of the country in celebrating Republic Day, which commemorates the day when the Constitution came into effect in 1950.
Harris, 59, is scheduled to formally accept the Democratic Party's presidential nomination on Thursday to take on Republican rival Donald Trump, 78, in the November 5 election.
There are 1,349 candidates in the fray and over 1.45 crore electors are eligible to exercise their franchise in the elections to the 250 wards of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), the results of which may have ramifications beyond the national capital.
A land-owning class, the Jats are a powerful community and account for 28 per cent of Haryana's population. The time, they believe, has now come for them to take revenge.
The Mizoram assembly elections passed off peacefully on Tuesday with over 77 per cent of 8.57 lakh electors exercising their franchise, officials said.
Struggling to gain political traction on issues of corruption, the West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party is shifting its focus to emotive topics such as the Ram Temple in Ayodhya and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in a bid to achieve its target of securing 35 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats from the state.
In the event of the BJP's poor performance in the assembly polls this year and in early 2025, Modi's hold will get further weakened because he will no longer remain the invincible electoral persona tightly controlling the machine at his disposal, asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The Kukis have already declared that they are not fielding any candidate in the parliamentary polls as an act of boycott.
The big surprise is that Narendra Modi, the greatest conjurer in our national politics, has not yet presented a theme to this election, observes Shekhar Gupta.
US Vice President Kamala Harris, who is of Indian and African heritage, has formally secured the Democratic presidential nomination becoming the first Indian-American to win the nomination from a major political party, and chose Minnesota Gov Tim Walz as her running mate on Tuesday.
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.
Sources in the PML-N told the Press Trust of India in Lahore that Nawaz Sharif decided to withdraw himself from the race for the prime minister's office for his daughter and political heir, Maryam Nawaz, 50.
Chowdhury termed Banerjee as an "opportunist politician" who altered her stance after realising the changing political landscape.
'Investors need to be stock specific and should not rush to buy stocks at the current levels.'
'Once elected, you have to act like people's representative for the full five years or else people show you your place.'
Ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal on Thursday met the full bench of the Election Commission of India (ECI) and alleged that the Border Security Force (BSF) is threatening people in the border areas of the state to cast their votes in favour of a particular political party.
