Page 97 - Lok Sabha

As it finalises preparations for LS polls, EC to visit states from Jan 7

The Election Commission (EC) will start reviewing preparedness of states for the Lok Sabha elections with a visit to Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu next week. The commission led by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and comprising Election Commissioners Anup Chandra Pandey and Arun Goel will be in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu between January 7 and 10. Ahead of the visit, deputy election commissioners will brief the full commission about the preparations in the two states on January 6. The deputy election commissioners have visited almost all the states to oversee the preparation for the Lok Sabha polls. It is usual for the EC to tour states ahead of assembly or Lok Sabha elections to meet political parties, senior police and administrative officials and its ground poll machinery. It is, however, not yet certain whether the EC will visit all the states and union territories. It may skip states where assembly polls were held recently. In 2019, the Lok Sabha elections were anno

BJP, Sangh have no relevance in LS polls in Kerala: Congress' VD Satheesan

Earlier on Wednesday, attacking the Left parties and Congress in Kerala, PM Modi alleged that governments led by LDF and UDF in the state considered 'nari shakti' as weak

Congress focuses on caste census, recognition to Sarnaism in Jharkhand

Senior Congress leader Ghulam Ahmad Mir has advocated for a "caste census" in Jharkhand. Mir, the Congress's in-charge of Jharkhand came to the eastern state to take stock of the party's organisational strength ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. He chaired a series of meetings with different units of the Congress, including its legislative party and political affairs committee, besides one with its Lok Sabha seat in-charges, to discuss strategies for the elections. State Congress president Rajesh Thakur, ministers Alamgir Alam, Rameshwar Oraon, Banna Gupta and Badal Patralekh were present in the legislative party meeting. At the meeting of the political affairs committee, a resolution was passed authorising Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge to make the final decision on seat sharing. "It was also decided that whoever will be made the candidate, the party leaders and workers will support him or her and will work towards ensuring the victory of the candidate," a statement ...

SC seeks LS secretary general's reply on Moitra's plea against expulsion

The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought a reply from the Lok Sabha secretary general on Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra's plea challenging her expulsion from the Lower House. A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta refused to pass any order on an interim prayer of Moitra to let her attend the proceedings of the House, saying, allowing it would be like allowing the main petition. "We will consider your plea for interim relief in March," Justice Khanna told Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for Moitra. The top court also refused to issue any notice to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and the Committee on Ethics of Lok Sabha -- both were made a party by Moitra in her plea -- and said it would only seek a reply from the Lok Sabha secretary general. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Lok Sabha secretary general, requested the court not to issue a formal notice and said that he would file a reply to Moitra's petition. Mehta said the court should not

Internal discord persists in TMC amid calls for unity ahead of LS polls

Internal strife within the Trinamool Congress (TMC) showed no signs of abating on Wednesday, with senior leaders continuing to trade verbal jabs, even as the party leadership issued a subtle call for setting aside grievances and focusing on the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The recent controversy unfolded after West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC leader Mamata Banerjee had in November advocated the need to give due respect to senior members and rejected the notion that elderly leaders should retire from active politics. Following this, TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, Mamata Banerjee's nephew, proposed a retirement age in politics, citing declining work efficiency and productivity with advancing age. The party has since become a battleground for allegations and counter-allegations between senior and young leaders. The tensions reached a new low when five-time TMC MLA Tapas Ray criticised veteran leader and TMC's Lok Sabha party leader Sudip Bandopadhyay, accusing him

BJP alleges 'hidden motive' as CM Kejriwal skips ED's third summon

Congress slammed the central agency and alleged it of targeting opposition leaders and "not doing their work"

Privileges Committees of LS, RS to meet next week, hear suspended MPs

The Privileges Committees of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are scheduled to meet next week, where 14 opposition MPs will be given an opportunity to put across their views over the issue of their suspension for unruly conduct during the recent Winter Session of Parliament. As many as 146 MPs 100 from Lok Sabha and 46 from Rajya Sabha were suspended during the Winter session of Parliament after they brought placards and raised slogans demanding a statement from Home Minister Amit Shah on the issue of breach of Parliament security. Fourteen MPs three from Lok Sabha and 11 from Rajya Sabha were suspended for creating "grave disorder in their respective Houses on December 18 which led to their suspension and their cases being referred to the Privileges Committee. Both Houses resolved that the revocation of suspension of the 14 members was subject to the report of the Privileges Committees of the respective Houses. The Privileges Committee of Rajya Sabha is scheduled to meet on January

Concerns of South to be taken care of during delimitation of LS seats: Govt

Concerns of Southern states will be taken care of during the delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies, a senior government functionary said on Tuesday, assuring the five states they would not suffer and asking them not to have any apprehension about the exercise. Delimitation literally means the act or process of fixing limits or boundaries of territorial constituencies in a country or a province having a legislative body. The job of delimitation is assigned to a high-powered body. The body is known as Delimitation Commission or a Boundary Commission. In India, such Delimitation Commissions have been constituted four times: in 1952 under the Delimitation Commission Act, 1952; in 1963 under Delimitation Commission Act, 1962; in 1973 under Delimitation Act, 1972 and in 2002 under Delimitation Act, 2002. "The census will be carried out after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. After the census is over, the delimitation of the constituencies will be carried out on the basis of the coming ...

BJP holds key meet in Delhi with eye on Lok Sabha polls, Ram Mandir event

Union Ministers Bhupendra Yadav, Ashwini Vaishnav, Assam Chief Minister Hemant Vishwa Sharma, general secretaries Tarun Chugh, and Sunil Bansal are present at the meeting

After setback in assembly polls, Cong braces for make-or-break in 2024

Fresh from the setbacks in the assembly elections of Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the Congress is bracing for a make-or-break 2024, the year of the 18th Lok Sabha election. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi hopes to equal Jawaharlal Nehru's record of returning to the PMO thrice in a row, the new year is also being seen by many as one of the toughest periods for the Congress in its 138-year journey. It will also mark 40 years since Congress scaled its electoral peak in 1984 winning a record 414 Lok Sabha seats. With just 48 seats in the Lower House of Parliament now, the party has experienced a steady decline in the last 10 years. In 2024, as Congress hopes to arrest this slide, it will face multiple challenges, the topmost being finalizing seat-sharing deals with constituents of the anti-BJP INDIA bloc which is yet to make any electoral impact. The Congress will begin these negotiations on a weak footing, having lost the Hindi heartland states

FinMin seeks proposals for final supplementary demands for grants

The finance ministry has sought expenditure proposals for the second and final batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants from various ministries and departments ahead of the Budget session likely to commence in the last week of January. This would be the last session of the 17th Lok Sabha before the general elections and the government would seek expenditure approvals of Parliament for four months till July 2024 through a vote on account. The second batch of Supplementary Demands for Grants for 2023-24 is proposed to be placed before Parliament in the ensuing Budget session, the finance ministry said in an office memorandum. The cases that would be eligible to be incorporated under such demands include those where advances from the Contingency Fund have been granted. Besides, payments against court decree would be included as well as cases where the finance ministry has specifically advised moving the supplementary demand in the winter session, it said. "While processing proposals

BJP will take away voting rights from people if it comes to power: Akhilesh

Speaking to reporters on Saturday, the Samajwadi Party chief asserted that the 2024 Lok Sabha elections are for safeguarding the Constitution

India seeks bargains against UK's carbon border tax as part of FTA

Both countries hope to finalise the deal by February, before the Lok Sabha election in India

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Maha CM Eknath Shinde announces 'Shivsankalp Abhiyaan' for Lok Sabha polls

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde has set the Shiv Sena's Lok Sabha campaign rolling by announcing that he would tour all 48 constituencies in the state as part of the Shivsankalp Abhiyaan'. Addressing party workers through video conferencing on Thursday, Shinde asked them to prepare for the Lok Sabha polls, which will be held in the first half of 2024. He directed them to campaign for candidates of the ruling alliance or Mahayuti', which also includes the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Ajit Pawar faction of the Nationalist Congress Party. The Shivsankalp Abhiyaan will start from January 6 from Yavatmal-Washim constituency. Over the next month, Shinde will visit 15 more constituencies covering different regions of the state, the CM's party said. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, out of the 48 seats in Maharashtra, the BJP secured 23 seats, followed by the undivided Shiv Sena with 18 seats and the NCP with 4 seats. The Congress and AIMIM each won one, while another went

Rate impact, inflation decline: Axis MF forecasts 2024 as year of contrast

Citing the recent state election results, the note stated that the risks from the general election are low

LIVE news: Former cricketer Ambati Rayudu joins YSR Congress

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If EVMs not fixed before LS polls, BJP can win over 400 seats: Sam Pitroda

Raising concerns over electronic voting machines, Congress leader Sam Pitroda on Thursday said the BJP can win more than 400 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections if issues associated with EVMs are not "fixed". The elections will be about deciding the destiny of India, he told PTI-Video in an interview. While the Election Commission has always dismissed apprehensions over EVMs and also held hackathons to clear any doubts, some opposition leaders, including from the Congress, have been repeatedly raising the issue of EVMs allegedly being open to manipulation. Many in the Congress have also asserted, including after the recent assembly polls in which the party lost some key heartland states, that they trust these machines. However, the Congress and other opposition parties have been demanding 100 per cent Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) and that the slips should be given to voters rather than falling into boxes. Congress leader Pitroda also said that his recent comments o

Eyeing Lok Sabha elections, Amit Shah to attend BJP meeting in Telangana

Union Home Minister Amit Shah will participate in a BJP state-level meeting on Thursday and chalk out a roadmap to the party's Telangana unit leaders and cadre for the general elections to be held in a few months. This is Shah's first visit to the state after the recently concluded Assembly polls which gave "disappointing" results to the saffron party though it could improve its tally in terms of votes and seats. The BJP which emerged as a principal challenger to the BRS at one point of time after winning a couple of by-polls and the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation elections, before the November 30 Assembly elections, finally ended up doubling its vote share to nearly 14 per cent besides improving its tally to eight seats in the 119-member House. "Amit Shah will visit the Sri Bhagyalakshmi temple (near the historic Charminar). Afterwards, he will address the gathering of party leaders from across the state. Basically the meeting will delve into the party's performance in the

Cong to sound poll bugle with mega rally in Nagpur; Sonia to address event

The Congress is set to kickstart its campaign for next year's Lok Sabha elections with its mega rally 'Hain Tayyar Hum' in Maharashtra's Nagpur city on Thursday, the party's 139th foundation day. It will be a historic moment for the people of the country, Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole on Wednesday said addressing a press conference at the venue of the event. The party will give a message of change to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre, he said. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and former party chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will address the rally, according to party leaders. The mega event assumes significance as it will be held in Nagpur, where the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's (RSS) headquarters and 'Deekshabhoomi', the historic place where Dr B R Ambedkar embraced Buddhism, are located. The rally, with the theme 'Hain Tayyar Hum' (we are ready), will send a good message throughout the country. The Congress will sound the bugle for the Lok