While the ruling BJP, riding on the Modi juggernaut, wants to break the 38-year jinx and retain its southern citadel, the Congress is seeking to wrest power to give the party much-needed elbow room and momentum to position itself as the main opposition player in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The by-elections are seen as a prestigious popularity test for the ruling Congress-Janata Dal-Secular coalition, as the outcome is expected to have a bearing on the state's political scene.
The ruling Congress on Thursday swept the Shimla Municipal Corporation (SMC) polls with a two-third majority by winning 24 wards out of the total 34, wresting the prestigious civic body from the BJP.
A string of populist promises, including extension of the free ration scheme announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Mahadev betting app issue and the Hindutva card are among key factors that have catapulted the Bharatiya Janata Party to power in Chhattisgarh after five years.
Narendra Modi stoked a controversy yet again on a polling day by releasing a video message seeking votes for the Bharatiya Janata Party, which an angry Congress decried as a violation of the electoral law and demanded that the Election Commission take action against him.
'There was a 77 per cent chance that electorates in India voted for the same party for both the state and Centre when elections were held simultaneously.'
The three main political parties in Pakistan on Sunday intensified their efforts for the formation of a coalition government after it became clear that the coup-prone country faced a hung Parliament after general elections marred by allegations of rigging.
Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal will attend the meetings of the committee as a special invitee, while legal affairs secretary Niten Chandra will be secretary to the panel.
In Jharsuguda, Dipali Das secured a total of 1,07,198 votes receiving 60.93 per cent of the votes polled, while Tripathy bagged 58,477 votes (33.24 per cent).
Rulers in New Delhi and their political aides in sensitive states like Tamil Nadu have to be doubly careful not to provoke a situation whose consequences may be much more than visible now to the naked eye, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Stakes are high for the Bharatiya Janata Party, as the results will signal if it has deepened its roots in Tripura, and made further inroads in Meghalaya and Nagaland, or if the Opposition has managed to dent its influence.
While separatists have called for a boycott of the polls, terrorists have threatened to target persons taking part in these elections.
BJP candidate and former chief minister Bhajan Lal's grandson Bhavya Bishnoi on Sunday defeated his nearest rival and Congress nominee Jai Prakash in the Adampur assembly seat by-election, retaining the family bastion.
The SEC claimed that BSF could not provide central forces to more than 10,000 booths.
The fact that Gehlot has stayed relevant these five years with his populist schemes is one reason why he may beat incumbency in a state that votes for change every election, observes Ramesh Menon.
The districts going to polls in this phase are Balrampur, Gonda, Faizabad, Ambedkar Nagar, Bahraich, Shravasti, Basti, Siddharth Nagar, Sant Kabir Nagar, Amethi and Sultanpur.
It is a sea of men clad in veshtis with distinctive party colour border design seeking votes with a smile and folded hands for their party candidates. The town is abuzz, with electioneering at its peak, and teeming trendy cars criss-cross the busy roads and bylanes bringing in more and more leaders from elsewhere for campaign.
While asking the Centre to set up the delimitation panel, the top court, however, said it cannot direct Parliament to amend or make laws for giving proper representation to other communities that form part of the STs as that would amount to "venturing into the legislative domain".
A high-level committee to explore the feasibility of conducting simultaneous elections, headed by former president Ram Nath Kovind, held its first meeting in New Delhi on Saturday and decided to invite political parties and the Law Commission to seek their views on holding synchronised polls in the country, a statement said.
Political observers feel that the outcome of the elections weighs in favour of the BJP which had won a massive mandate in the Lok Sabha elections, held earlier this year.
Bihar Chief Electoral Officer H R Srinivasa said the Election Commission has established a three-tier security system for strong rooms (housing the electronic voting machines) and the counting centres. The inner core is being guarded by the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), then there is the Bihar Military Police (BMP) and then the district police, he told reporters.
During his nearly 25-minute speech, Trump praised Modi's economic reforms and said these reforms have lifted more than three million people out of poverty. "And that is an incredible number," he added.
The transmogrification of Prime Minister Modi to Saint Modi began with the ground-breaking ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. By identifying himself with Lord Ram, Modi raised himself in popular imagination to a saintly person.
The stage is now set for the first substantial round of polling in the Lok Sabha elections on Thursday, involving nearly 11 crore voters in 92 seats spread across 11 states, including Delhi and the national capital region and the riot-hit Muzaffarnagar.
In the normal course, a high turnout reflects anti-incumbency but there is no correlation between high turnout and advantage to the National Democratic Alliance, says Dharmendra Kumar Singh.
Polling for one Lok Sabha and 31 assembly seats spread across seven states started on Saturday morning amid tight security. As polling started at 8 am, voters were seen trickling in at some booths. The most hi-profile electoral battle is being held between Congress' actor-turned-politician Raj Babbar, who is pitched against Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav's daughter-in- law Dimple, in the Firozabad Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh.
Among those killed were eight from TMC, and one worker each of the BJP, the CPI-M, the Congress and the ISF.
No major glitches in electronic voting machines were reported and the voting passed off peacefully with high security observed at the 3,360 critical booths in 493 locations where more than 25,000 police personnel, nearly 13,000 home guards and 100 companies of paramilitary forces were deployed, officials said.
'Its people are either victims of corruption or witnesses to it.'
'Historically, equities have consistently outperformed debt, gold, property, and other assets over a reasonable period.'
Over 83 per cent of the more than 13 lakh electorate cast their vote on Monday in the single-day Nagaland state election which passed off by and large peacefully, Chief Electoral Officer V Shashank Shekhar said.
The 'ethical voting' campaign launched by the Election Commission of India has pulled big crowds in rural as well as urban centres of Garo hills areas under Tura parliamentary constituency in Meghalaya in the run up to the polling that is being held on Wednesday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which won 25 seats in the Himachal Pradesh elections, suffered a setback in the assembly segments falling under Shimla, Hamirpur and Kangra parliamentary constituencies in the hill state.
All 39 constituents of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Tuesday reposed faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and resolved to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections unitedly under his leadership.
With the general election campaign less than six months away, the BJP has more to think about than it had on the eve of 2019. It's the states that will be robbing BJP strategists of their sleep at this point, not the Lok Sabha, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
'Unless she joins one of the coalitions, she has a bleak future.' 'The NDA option is suicidal, but INDIA could help her.'
The BJP has done extremely well in the Patidar-dominated constituencies of the state, winning almost every seat that has significant Patel population.
Contests in 13 seats would attract most attention during the Chhattisgarh assembly elections as they feature prominent leaders of the Congress and BJP.
The BJP has alleged that the Arvind Kejriwal-led party is violating the Model Code of Conduct during the election process in the national capital.
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