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The campaigning for the polling to Jharkhand's 48 urban local bodies (ULB), including Ranchi, concluded on Saturday evening, a State Election Commission official said. The election will be held on February 23 and votes will be counted on February 27, he said. "The campaigning for the urban local body polls ended at 5 pm on Saturday. The polling will take place on February 23 from 7am to 5pm," SEC Secretary Radhe Shyam Prasad told PTI. He said that the 48-hour 'silence period' started from 5pm on Saturday, during which all forms of campaigning are banned. "Under the rules, no person shall call, organise, or attend any public meeting for a period of 48 hours before the time fixed for the close of poll. This provision came into effect at 5 pm today," Prasad said. The candidates made their last-ditch efforts to garner people's supports in their favour on Saturday. The elections are scheduled to be held for the post of 48 mayors or chairpersons and councillors at 1,087 wards in nine .
As many as 480 companies of Central Armed Police Forces will be initially deployed in poll-bound West Bengal for area domination, confidence-building measures and other election-related duties from March 1, an EC official said on Saturday. They will also guard EVMs at strong rooms and counting centres during the election process. The assembly elections in the state are due in a few months. The official said that the first batch of around 240 companies will be inducted by March 1, while an equal number of companies will join them by March 10. The contingents will include personnel from the Central Reserve Police Force, Border Security Force, Central Industrial Security Force, Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the Sashastra Seema Bal. The final electoral roll after the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is scheduled to be published on February 28, while the election schedule is expected to be announced in March.
A high-level meeting on the SIR exercise began at the Calcutta High Court on Saturday afternoon, in accordance with the SC's directives, officials said. The meeting, presided over by HC Chief Justice Sujoy Paul, aims to establish a framework for judicial oversight as mandated by the apex court, they said. The meeting follows the Supreme Court's direction that the remaining stages of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls must now be conducted under the supervision of judicial officers and former judges. Chief Secretary Nandini Chakraborty and Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Manoj Agarwal were among the officers attending the meeting. The CEO said the meeting would allow all stakeholders to present their "points of view" to resolve existing complexities and receive specific directions on the way forward. Dismayed over the ongoing tussle between the West Bengal government and the Election Commission, the Supreme Court on Friday issued an "extraordinary" direction to .
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday congratulated Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley on her third consecutive electoral victory and said India deeply values its long-standing friendship with the Caribbean country. Mottley's party secured all 30 seats of Parliament in this week's general election. "Warm congratulations to Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley on her historic third consecutive electoral victory. India deeply values its long-standing friendship with Barbados, which continues to expand across diverse areas of cooperation," Modi said on X. "I warmly recall our meeting on the sidelines of the India-CARICOM Summit in 2024 and look forward to working closely with her to further strengthen our partnership for the benefit of our peoples," he said.
West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal on Saturday requested the Election Commission of India to extend the final date of hearing under SIR of electoral rolls by seven days, after several district election officers reported delays in completion of hearings, verification, and data uploading. The deadline for the hearing under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was February 7. Agarwal told reporters that the appeal was made following inputs from seven to eight districts where different stages of the process were still pending. "I have appealed to extend the last date of hearing for seven days after receiving inputs from seven to eight district election officers. In some places, the process of hearing is yet to be over, while in others uploading, verification, and final decisions by the AEROs and EROs are still pending," Agarwal said. He said if allowed, hearings will now continue till February 14, adding that the final electoral roll, which was earlier
The BJP on Saturday asked Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Akhilesh Yadav to refrain from making a spectacle of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in Uttar Pradesh by making contradictory claims about the exercise. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is a constitutional process, which the Election Commission is carrying out with complete professional and technical expertise, BJP national spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Sudhanshu Trivedi said, and asked Yadav and others in the opposition INDIA bloc to cooperate in the exercise with all seriousness. The remarks came after Yadav on Saturday claimed that the BJP leaders in Uttar Pradesh knew how many voters would be removed from the draft electoral roll even before it was published, and questioned the poll panel's credibility. Slamming Yadav, Trivedi said the Samajwadi Party (SP) chief should first make it clear that names of which party's voters have been removed from the draft rolls, because recently he was claimin
Sharpening her attack on the Election Commission, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee urged CEC Gyanesh Kumar to halt the "arbitrary and flawed" SIR in the state, warning that its continuation in the present form could trigger "mass disenfranchisement" and "strike at the foundations of democracy". In a strongly worded letter dated December 3, Banerjee accused the commission of presiding over what she described as an "unplanned, ill-prepared and ad hoc" process marked by "serious irregularities, procedural violations, and administrative lapses". She asserted that the situation on the ground had worsened despite her two earlier communications to the chief election commissioner (CEC). "I am once again constrained to write to you in order to place on record my grave concern," Banerjee wrote, recalling that she had flagged similar issues in letters dated November 20 and December 2. "Regrettably, instead of any corrective course being adopted, the situation on the ground has only
The Election Commission of India on Friday decided to extend by one week the SIR schedule for Kerala in view of the upcoming local body polls in the state. The local body polls will be held in the state on December 9 and 11 in two phases. The commission's order comes after Kerala submitted a request, as permitted by the Supreme Court, to extend the last dates for submission of the enumeration forms and other procedures which are part of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll. Under the revised schedule, the draft electoral roll will be published on December 23 as against the earlier date of December 16. The final electoral roll will be published on February 21, 2026 as against the earlier date of February 14, 2026, the commission said.