Page 149 - Lok Sabha Elections

INDIA bloc to raise objection against 'targeting' of Oppn leaders with EC

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee condemned the arrest of Delhi CM Kejriwal; said INDIA bloc will meet with the Election Commission to object against the 'deliberate targeting' of Opposition leaders

LS elections 2024: TN CM Stalin to launch campaign from Trichy on Friday

DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin will launch his party's campaign for the April 19 Lok Sabha polls, from this central district on Friday. Stalin, a key leader of the opposition INDIA bloc, will canvass votes for the party-led bloc's Tiruchirappalli candidate, MDMK leader Durai Vaiko and the DMK's Arun Nehru in nearby Perambalur, according to the tour schedule of the ruling party chief. The DMK leads the multi-party Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA), which had swept the 2019 elections. It had won 38 of the 39 Lok Sabha seats in Tamil Nadu then, besides the neighbouring Puducherry segment. Durai is the son of MDMK founder Vaiko and the Tiruchirappalli constituency has been allotted to the party by the DMK as part of the poll pact. Congress' Su Thirunavukkarasar represents the segment in the outgoing House. After launching his poll campaign from here, Stalin will embark on a state-wide tour, covering all 39 LS seats in the state, besides Puducherry, in the comin

Cong Prez Kharge makes way for son-in-law, unlikely to contest LS polls

Amid firm indications that Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge is unlikely to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, the party on Thursday fielded his son-in-law, Radhakrishna Doddamani, from his home turf of Gulbarga. The octogenarian won the Lok Sabha polls from the Gulbarga (Kalaburagi) segment in 2009 and 2014, but lost the electoral contest in 2019. "Kharge's hands are full. In addition to managing party affairs at the national level, he has to coordinate with the INDIA bloc partners. Also, his term in the Rajya Sabha is not yet over," a senior Congress leader said. The Congress president's son, Priyank Kharge, who represents the Chittapur Assembly constituency in Gulbarga and is a minister in the Karnataka government, was not interested to throw his hat in the ring either and hence, Doddamani emerged as the natural choice, according to party sources. The sources said the Congress president took the final call in the matter. Doddamani is a businessman who also manages ...

SC rejects plea for stay on appointment of new election commissioners

The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed applications seeking a stay on the appointment of two new election commissioners. A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta said it will examine the main petitions challenging the validity of the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Terms of Office) Act, 2023. "We are dismissing the applications for stay on the appointment," the bench said. "At the stage, we cannot stay the legislation or suspend it operation. It would lead to chaos and uncertainty and we cannot do it (stay) by way of an interim order. There are no allegations against the new election commissioners," the bench told the petitioners' challenging the new law. During the hearing, the bench questioned the Centre over the procedure adopted for appointment of two new election commissioners. It said the selection committee should have been given more time to apply its mind on the appointment of election ...

Lok Sabha elections 2024: Congress announces new list of candidates

The Congress on Thursday announced five more candidates from Rajasthan, including AICC secretary Kuldeep Indora from Ganganagar and former minister Pramod Jain Bhaya's wife Urmila Jain from Jhalwar-Baran seat, for the Lok Sabha elections. The party has left the Sikar parliamentary seat for the Communist Party of India (Marxist). All five Congress candidates are fresh faces and will be contesting the Lok Sabha elections for the first time. Apart from Indora and Urmila Jain, the other candidates include Congress leader and chairman of a private university Sunil Sharma from Jaipur city, Sangeeta Beniwal from Pali and Umeda Ram Beniwal from Barmer. Umeda Ram Beniwal had earlier contested the assembly election on a Rashtriya Loktantrik Party (RLP) ticket and had recently joined the Congress. Sangeeta Beniwal was the chairperson of the Rajasthan State Commission for Protection of Child Rights. The party on March 12 announced the names of 10 candidates from Rajasthan while the BJP has ..

Ice creams and beverage items to see surge in sales during poll season

At present, the ice cream market in India is pegged at $5.33 billion in terms of revenue and is expected to grow annually by 10.86 per cent between 2024-28, said a Statista report

To win 370 LS seats, BJP needs to significantly improve its strike rate

In 1984, the Congress won 404 of the seats that went to the polls in December and later another 10 seats when the Lok Sabha elections took place in Assam and Punjab

Highlights of the day: Delhi CM Kejriwal arrested in excise policy case

Latest news updates: Catch all the news updates from around the world here

Containing disinformation

Initiatives by digital giants will be critical

How Delhi CM Kejriwal's arrest may dent AAP's prospects in Lok Sabha polls

The arrest of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal Thursday night could not have come at a worse time for the Aam Aadmi Party, which is already grappling with the absence of its top leadership from action. The party is eyeing at expanding its footprint across the country and has tied up with the Congress to contest the Lok Sabha polls against the BJP in Delhi, Haryana and Gujarat. Kejriwal is the fulcrum of the party's Lok Sabha campaign and its star campaigner. The party is already feeling the pinch of the absence of its senior leaders like Manish Sisodia, Satyendar Jain and Sanjay Singh. Now the arrest of Kejriwal has landed the ruling party of Delhi in the doldrums. On earlier occasions, whenever this question rose, the party maintained a tough stance saying it will fight it out, but there is no denying the fact that AAP's think tank won't find it easy to wriggle out of this problem. The party's campaign in Delhi, where it is contesting on four seats and in Gujarat, where it ha

Congress to finalise Himachal LS list soon, options open for rebels: Kimta

The Congress leader further said, "We have implemented the Old Pension Scheme and provided an honorarium of 1500 rupees to the women

EC releases electoral bonds data with bond numbers: See full list

The data also include details of redemption by political parties, including serial number, date of encashment, and name of political party, among other information

Lok Sabha elections 2024: Key things to know about phase four polls

Lok Sabha polls: In the fourth stage, 96 seats across 10 states and UTs will go to polls, including the entire Telangana and Andhra Pradesh

Caste census against 'Indira-Rajiv legacy': Congress leader Anand Sharma

Anand Sharma invoked Congress' historical position on the issue under the regime of former PMs Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi and advised the party to refrain from indulging in identity politics

SBI furnishes complete electoral bond details with serial numbers to ECI

The move comes after the apex court had pulled up State Bank of India for giving 'selective details' and asked it to provide complete details regarding the electoral bonds scheme

LS polls: Bihar Cong chief meets Lalu amid rumours of RJD giving tickets

Bihar Congress president Akhilesh Prasad Singh on Thursday called on RJD chief Lalu Prasad, amid rumours that the latter has begun to allot party tickets for the Lok Sabha polls. After meeting the RJD supremo, the Congress leader maintained that everything will be sorted out in good time, but ducked pointed queries about murmurs that Prasad has given tickets, unilaterally, for all the four seats going to polls in the first phase. "I keep meeting Lalu ji. There is nothing new in it, said Singh, who, incidentally, had started his political career with the RJD and was a minister in the UPA 1 government from that party's quota. He added that seat-sharing will be decided among constituents of the Mahagathbandhan' "in a few days", but did not reply to queries about the RJD reportedly moving forward on ticket distribution without taking allies into confidence. Besides the Congress and the RJD, the Mahagathbandhan' comprises the CPI (ML) Liberation, the CPI and the CPI(M). On Wednesday, i

DMK manifesto promising to stop Mekedatu: K'taka BJP chief targets Congress

The Congress government in Karnataka has "sacrificed" the drinking water needs of the state's farmers and citizens for the "selfish" coalition politics of INDIA alliance, state BJP President B Y Vijayendra alleged on Thursday, following DMK's promise to stop construction of Mekedatu dam in its manifesto for the Lok Sabha polls. Voting for the Congress would be detrimental to the interests of the state, he said, as he took a dig at Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his government in a post on "X' with "#WeakestCM #NammaKaveriNammaHakku (Our Cauvery Our Right)." Tamil Nadu's ruling DMK, a key constituent of the INDIA bloc, in its manifesto released on Wednesday promised stopping construction of Mekedatu dam. "DMK Manifesto exposes the Siddaramaiah govt's clandestine arrangement with M K Stalin (Tamil Nadu CM) that has cost us our lifeline "Cauvery", the primary source of Drinking Water & Irrigation purposes for our farmers, during the time of a severe drought," Vijayendra said. He ...

AIADMK names nominees for all 32 LS seats, set to fight in Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu's main opposition AIADMK on Thursday released its final list of 16 candidates for the Lok Sabha polls and also named its candidate for the lone Puducherry Parliamentary constituency. The AIADMK has completed the exercise of naming nominees and allotting seats to allies, and party chief Edappadi K Palaniswami is all set to launch his election campaign from Tiruchirappalli on March 24. In total, the AIADMK will contest in 32 segments and it has allotted seven constituencies to allies, the DMDK, Puthiya Tamizhagam and SDPI. Tamil Nadu has 39 Lok Sabha constituencies. For the Tirunelveli LS seat, Palaniswami announced Simla Muthuchozhan who was formerly with the DMK. She had unsuccessfully contested in 2016 against late AIADMK matriarch J Jayalalithaa from the RK Nagar Assembly constituency. Daughter-in-law of former DMK leader SP Sarguna Pandian, Muthuchozhan joined the AIADMK recently. An advocate, she is also the only woman candidate announced by the AIADMK for the Lok Sa

MVA's seat-sharing formula, candidates for LS polls to be declared: Patole

Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole on Thursday said the Maha Vikas Aghadi's seat-sharing formula and its list of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls will be announced in a day or two. The opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) comprises the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena (UBT), Congress and NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar). Maharashtra has 48 Lok Sabha seats, the second highest in the country after 80 in Uttar Pradesh. Talking to reporters after a meeting of the MVA leaders at NCP(SP) chief Sharad Pawar's residence here, Patole said the Congress' Central Election Committee (CEC) in Delhi has finalised 12 candidates. "We are discussing with our allies and will announce the list in a day or two," he said. Patole and Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Balasaheb Thorat, who were in Delhi for their party's CEC meeting, had returned to Mumbai for the meeting. NCP (SP) state president Jayant Patil and party leader Jitendra Awhad also attended the meeting at Pawar's ...

Our bank accounts frozen, BJP murdering democracy: Congress slams PM Modi

Alleging an assault on the democracy of India, Congress said that they have been unable to advertise in print or electronic media in the past month over I-T notices going back to FY1994.