It also said over two crore young electors in age group of 18 to 29 years have been added in the voters' list.
An elderly Pakistani woman, staying in a village in Bikaner on a long-term visa, has managed to get her name included in the country's voters' list, leaving officials red-faced. Alabasai, married to a local, has been residing in KJD village in Khajuwala sub-division since 1986 but has not been granted Indian citizenship so far. However, her name was included in the voters' list in 2008. =
'There was no financing or even promise of finance involved in MoU, forget X or Y amount'
Even as KPs lined up across special polling stations in Jammu amid tight security, several of them had to return without casting their vote.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has accused the BJP of rigging the Maharashtra assembly elections and called for a return to ballot paper voting. He also criticized the Modi government for selling off public assets, undermining democratic institutions, and promoting communal polarization. Kharge's remarks come as the Congress prepares for its AICC session in Ahmedabad, where it will present its political and economic views.
Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal faced some protests on Tuesday as he decided to leave for Goa for campaigning without casting his vote in the Uttar Pradesh polls but in an anti-climax he could not exercise his franchise as his name was missing from the electoral rolls.
The government sources said the bill incorporates various electoral reforms which have been discussed for a long time.
'Prashant Kishor is a businessman before he is a politician, and given that the expected average turnout for JSP candidates is 5,000 to 6,000 votes and since Bihar has a significant number of seats where the margin between the winner and runner-up falls within that range he will capitalise on exactly that to showcase his presence.'
Aam Aadmi Party claimed that there are a large number of "fake" voters in Delhi and alleged that it was result of collusion among local level officers, against whom it sought exemplary action.
Soon after a Congress delegation approached it on the issue, the poll panel formed two teams to probe the allegations.
It was not the heat but errors in the voters list that may have stopped some voters from casting their votes in Mumbai.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi has two voter identity cards having separate addresses and the Election Commission is examining how she was issued two documents from different localities.
'Till the BJP does not understand Kejriwal they cannot win Delhi.'
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday took a major step to implement its key plank of "one nation, one election" as the Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved the constitutional amendment bill to roll out the concept of simultaneous Lok Sabha and state assembly polls, sources said.
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."
'He didn't implement good policies for good politics.' 'He never worked on comprehensive policy-making.' 'In Kejriwal's own constituency youths are jobless.'
New software will ensure that anyone with more than one election ID has to surrender the other cards.
Sinha, while congratulating the EC for ensuring peaceful voting, alleged that the sense of fear and terror did prevail at some places.
Three Lok Sabha MPs, including its former Telangana president Bandi Sanjay Kumar, figured on Sunday in the BJP's first list of 52 candidates.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
Delhi faces a severe financial crunch and the deficit is largely due to numerous welfare schemes without adequate revenue flowing in. The success of welfare schemes and electoral promises will need careful financial planning and out of the box thinking to whip up additional revenue, notes Ramesh Menon.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday accused RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat of treason for his remark that India got "true independence" after the Ram temple consecration. Gandhi also criticized the Election Commission, alleging a "serious problem" with the country's election system.
Infighting within West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) came to the fore after a video of an alleged verbal spat between party MPs and screenshots of heated exchanges from its official WhatsApp group for parliamentarians went viral. The incident reportedly involved a public altercation at the Election Commission headquarters, followed by a heated exchange on the party's WhatsApp group, leading to accusations of misconduct and leaked screenshots. The controversy has triggered calls for action against the party chief whip, Kalyan Banerjee, who is accused of misbehavior and tarnishing the party's image.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said his party was fighting the 'Bharatiya Janata Party, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Indian state itself', triggering a row with the BJP alleging that everything the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha does or says is in the direction of breaking India and dividing the society.
Former President Donald Trump is becoming increasingly unstable, obsessed with revenge and is out for unchecked power, Vice President Kamala Harris said on Friday in an unprecedented attack on her Republican rival ahead of next week's election.
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.
Given the possibilities that next year's assembly elections could throw up, Stalin told the state assembly that an interim report had to be submitted by January 2026. The outcomes may well find its way into the DMK's poll manifesto, thus seeking to keep the electoral focus still on the BJP-ruled Centre and Prime Minister Modi, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Voters can be relied on to punish a party which makes reckless promises without actually implementing them, asserts Virendra Kapoor.
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.
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.
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