Page 413 - Politics
Modi wave takes wind out of 'mahagathbandhan' sail
Riding on the crest of the Modi wave, BJP and its ally in Uttar Pradesh Thursday dished out a grand performance in Uttar Pradesh, halting the efforts of the fledgling 'mahagathbandhan' to challenge the saffron brigade in the crucial Hindi heartland state. As counting progressed past midnight, the BJP and the Apna Dal (S) consolidated their position, winning 54 seats together out of the 80 seats at stake. The BJP was leading on another 10. The BSP won eight and was leading on two seats, while its alliance partner SP won four and was leading on one. Congress won the lone Raebareli seat of Sonia Gandhi. In 2014 polls, BJP had won 71 seats and its ally Apna Dal (S) two, while Samajwadi Party bagged five seats and Congress two. In three bypolls, the opposition had wrested Gorakhpur, Phulpur and Kairana from the BJP. This time, the Modi wave not only smashed the SP-BSP alliance, but also uprooted Congress president Rahul Gandhi from the party bastion of Amethi, where Union minister Smriti ..
Assembly polls: TDP's Nara Lokesh loses to YSR Congress's Ramakrishna Reddy
Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu's son and Andhra Pradesh Information Technology minister Nara Lokesh lost his maiden electoral battle from Mangalagiri assembly constituency. He was defeated by YSR Congress's sitting MLA Alla Ramakrishna Reddy by a margin of 5,337 votes. In 2014, Reddy had won the seat by a margin of 12 votes. Lokesh is currently a member of the AP Legislative Council. His father-in-law and Telugu film star Nandamuri Harikrishna retained the Hindupur assembly seat by 17,028 votes. He defeated retired IPS officer Sheik Mohammad Iqbal of the YSRC. The YSRC, which is set for a landslide victory in the 175-member AP Assembly, so far bagged 104 seats, as per ECI data. It is leading in another 46 seats. The ruling TDP won 17 seats and is ahead in another seven. The final results are expected by Friday morning.
Egypt court orders release of Al Jazeera journalist
An Egyptian court ordered the release Thursday of a journalist working for Qatar's Al Jazeera network after nearly two and a half years of detention, a judicial source and a lawyer said. Mahmoud Hussein, an Egyptian national, was detained in Cairo in 2016 when he returned for a family holiday, on accusations of incitement against state institutions and spreading false news. Al Jazeera's website said Hussein has been held in custody "without formal charges, a trial or a conviction." It remains unclear when he will be released but his lawyer Taher Abul Nasr said "it is expected to take place within days." Al Jazeera has been caught up in the political rift between Cairo and Doha following the 2013 military ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, who was backed by Qatar. The Doha-based network is seen by Egypt's government as a mouthpiece for Morsi's outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group. Access to its website has been blocked in Egypt since 2017. Shortly after Morsi's ouster, ...
After poor Cong show, Nath faces heat from within party, BJP
After the Congress's poor showing in the Lok Sabha polls in Madhya Pradesh, murmurs of protest have started against Chief Minister Kamal Nath, who took charge just six months ago, in the ruling party. On the other hand, buoyed by its speculator performance in the state, the BJP is seeking to put pressure on the Congress government, which has a wafer thin majority in the 230-member assembly, and also sought Nath's resignation. Till late night, the BJP had won 26 of the 29 Lok Sabha seats and was leading in two others. The Congress has won only seat - Chhindwara - till now. The saffron party has already petitioned Governor Anandiben Patel, requesting her to convene a special session of the Assembly to test the Congress's legislative strength. Besides being the Chief Minister, Nath is also the state Congress president. "Nathji should take the moral responsibility for the defeat as he is chief minister and mostly importantly the state party chief as well, a Congress leader ..
Riding high on Modi wave, BJP retains all 7 seats in Delhi with higher margins
Riding high on the Modi wave, the BJP made a clean sweep in the national capital winning all seven seats with massive margins as all its candidates bagged more than 50 per cent of votes, while the Congress for the first time in five years fared better than the ruling AAP which was relegated to the third spot. The BJP's overall performance in the national capital, which witnessed a triangular contest, was miles ahead of its opponents --- the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress. The BJP polled over 56 per cent of votes, more than the combined vote share of the Congress (22.5 per cent) and the AAP (18.1 per cent). The BJP had bagged 46.4 per cent votes in 2014. Declaration of results was delayed due matching of paper slips from over 350 VVPATs. Results for Chandni Chowk and South Delhi were declared only by midnight. The saffron party led in all seven seats since the commencement of counting at 8 am. Celebrations began outside counting centres by noon as many BJP candidates were well ahead .
BJP bags three LS seats in Assam, Cong ahead in as many
The BJP clinched three seats and was leading in six others, while the Congress was ahead in three out of the 14 parliamentary constituencies in Assam. The AIUDF and an Independent were leading in one seat each. The saffron party retained the Jorhat and Dibrugarh parliamentary constituencies and wrested the Karimganj (SC) from the AIUDF. In Jorhat, state power minister Topon Kumar Gogoi defeated former Congress MLA Sushanta Borgohain by 82,653 votes. Dibrugarh's sitting BJP MP Rameswar Teli won by a high margin of 3,64,566 votes over former Union minister of the Congress, Paban Singh Ghatowar. In the Karimganj (SC) seat, BJP MLA and Deputy Speaker Kripanath Mallah defeated sitting AIUDF MP Radheshyam Biswas by 38,389 votes. The BJP is leading in Lakhimpur, Tezpur, Silchar, Gauhati, Mangaldoi and Autonomous District seats, while the Congress is ahead in Kaliabor, Nowgong and Barpeta. The AIUDF is leading in Dhubri and the sitting Independent MP in Kokrajhar (ST) ...
BJP wrests Raiganj, Dilip Ghosh wins Medinipur
BJP's Debasree Chaudhuri wrested the Raiganj Lok Sabha seat, defeating TMC's Kanaialal Agarwal by 60,574 votes, officials said Thursday. Chaudhari got 5,11,652 votes, while Agarwal bagged 4,51,078. Sitting CPI(M) MP Mohammed Salim emerged third with 1,82,035 votes and Congress's Deepa Dasmunshi, wife of Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, got 83,662 votes. In Medinipur Lok Sabha constituency, BJP's Bengal unit chief Dilip Ghosh defeated TMC's Manas Ranjan Bhunia by 88,952 votes. Ghosh bagged 6,85,433 votes, while Bhunia managed 59,6481 votes. In Kanthi, Trinamool Congress candidate Sisir Adhikari defeated his nearest rival, BJP's Debasis Samanta, by a margin of 1,11,668 votes. Adhikari got 7,11,872 votes and Samanta 6,00,204, the Election Commission said. In Kolkata Uttar Lok Sabha seat, TMC's Sudip Bandyopadhyay defeated BJP's Rahul Sinha by 1,27,095 votes. While Bandyopadhyay bagged 4,74,891 votes, Sinha polled 3,47,796. In Balurghat, BJP candidate Sukanta Majumdar defeated TMC's .
Madhu Koda's wife wrests Singhbhum from BJP J'khand chief
In Jharkhand, Congress nominee Gita Koda, wife of former chief minister Madhu Koda, who contested the LS polls from Singhbhum (ST) seat, defeated sitting BJP MP Laxman Gilua by 72,155 votes, an EC release said. Gilua is also BJP's state unit president. Former union minister and Congress candidate Subodh Kant Sahay was defeated by BJP candidate Sanjay Seth in Ranchi LS seat, EC officials said. Sahay was defeated by a margin of 2,83,026 votes, the release said. Sanjay Seth won the seat for the first time. The BJP, which had dropped its sitting MP Ramtahal Chaudhary, retained the seat. On the other side, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha's sitting MP Vijay Kumar Hansda defeated BJP's Hemlal Murmu by 98,890 votes and retained the Rajmahal (ST) seat, an EC official said. Sitting BJP MP Nishikant Dubey defeated Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) candidate Pradip Yadav by 1,84,227 votes from Godda Lok Sabha seat, an EC release said. In Jamshedpur, sitting BJP MP Bidyut Baran Mahato ...
Muslim representation in Parliament to increase marginally
Muslim representation in the 17th Lok Sabha could increase marginally from the previous election with as many as 26 candidates having won or leading, prominent being NC's Farooq Abdullah and AIMIM's Assauddin Owaisi. Owaisi won the Lok Sabha election from Hyderabad by 2,82,186 votes for the fourth time and will became the longest serving Muslim candidate. His party candidate Imtiaz Jaleel Syed, a former journalist, was leading by nearly 4,500 votes from Aurangabad constituency in Maharashtra. In Uttar Pradesh, four Muslim candidates won, while two other were leading, according to latest trends. In West Bengal, three Muslim candidates won and three others were leading. Two Muslim candidates from Kerala have won the election and one candidate was leading. In Jammu and Kashmi, two Muslim candidates from the National Conference won the election and another was leading. Two Muslim candidates emerged as winners in Bihar, while one candidate each in Punjab and Lakshadweep emerged victorious.
Mahesh Sharma retains Gautam Buddh Nagar with 8.30 lakh votes
BJP leader Mahesh Sharma on Thursday retained the Gautam Buddh Nagar Lok Sabha seat, bagging 8.30 lakh votes, the district election office said. Sharma defeated his nearest rival, BSP's Saveer Nagar, with a margin of 3.37 lakh votes, pocketing 59.64 per cent of the 13.92 lakh votes polled, the office said. Voting across the five assembly segments of Noida, Jewar, Dadri, Sikandrabad and Khurja that constitute the Gautam Buddh Nagar parliamentary seat was done on April 12, it said. Nagar, whose candidature was also backed by the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal, emerged second with 4.93 lakh votes, getting a share of 35.46 per cent. Congress' Arvind Kumar Singh was a distant third with 42,077 votes which were 3.02 per cent of total votes, according to the office. As many as 8,371 people pressed NOTA (None of the Above) option, which was more than what any of the remaining 10 candidates, including Independents, polled, the official data showed. The counting was conducted at the .
Parvesh Verma sets new record for largest victory margin in Delhi; 4 candidates lose deposits
The BJP's West Delhi candidate, Parvesh Singh Verma, rode on the Modi wave and his father Sahib Singh Verma's goodwill to win a second term with a record-breaking margin of 5.78 lakh votes. Verma broke his own record of having the largest victory margin in Delhi. In 2014, he had trounced his closest rival, Jarnail Singh of the AAP, by a margin of 2,68,586 votes. This time, he got 8,65,648 of the total 1,44,1601 votes polled in the seat. The Congress's Mahabal Mishra, who stood second, secured 2,87,162 votes. The BJP's Northwest Delhi candidate, Hans Raj Hans, clobbered his closest rival, Gugan Singh of the AAP, with a massive margin of 5,53,075 votes. The Singer-turned-politician got 8,48,663 of the total 1,40,2962 votes, while Singh could garner only 2,94,766. The saffron party's Chandi Chowk candidate, Harsh Vardhan, had the lowest winning margin in the city at just over 2.2 lakh votes. Three candidates of the ruling Aam Aadmi Party, Pankaj Kumar Gupta from Chandni Chowk, Brijesh ...
Kher registers second consecutive win from Chandigarh LS seat
Actor-turned-politician Kirron Kher Thursday registered her second consecutive victory on the BJP ticket from the Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat. Kher drubbed her nearest rival Pawan Kumar Bansal of the Congress by a margin of 46,970 votes. The AAP finished poor third place as its candidate and turncoat Harmohan Dhawan failed to save his security deposit. NOTA polled 4,335 votes in the city and was placed at the fifth spot out of the total 36 candidates. From the beginning of counting of votes, Kher maintained lead against former railway minister. Former Union minister and four-time MP Bansal will again have to content with the second spot.
Cong-UDF sweeps Ker, Rahul registers record win in Wayanad
In a massive win, Congress led UDF Thursday swept 18 of the total 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala, with AICC chief Rahul Gandhi emerging victorious from Wayanad with a record margin of over four lakh votes. The results came as a rude shock to the ruling CPI(M)-led LDF government headed by Pinarayi Vijayan, who had led the combine's charge, as the Marxist party ended with just one seat. The BJP which had hoped to open its Lok Sabha account from the state this time fell by way side as the UDF dominated the scene. Reacting to the huge blow dealt to the LDF, Vijayan said in a statement it was "unexpected", while state party secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan described the rout as a "temporary setback" and asserted the Left front would outlive such defeats. Not seeing the writing on the wall, Vijayan had dismissed as speculation the exit poll projections, which had stated that the Left front would win only 4-5 seats. Right since the counting of votes in the April 23 elections to .
BJP retains all five seats in Uttarakhand
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday retained all five Lok Sabha seats in Uttarakhand. State BJP president Ajay Bhatt defeated former chief minister and Congress leader Harish Rawat by a margin of over three lakh votes in Nainital. Ajay Bhatt attributed the party's spectacular show countrywide to the vision and leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Celebrations were held at the state party office here with Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat describing the party's victory as the reassertion of people's faith in Modi's leadership. In Haridwar seat, former chief minister and sitting BJP MP Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank drubbed Ambrish Kumar of Congress by 2,58,729 votes. BJP national secretary Tirath Singh Rawat won the Pauri (Garhwal) seat defeating Congress's Manish Khanduri, the son of his political mentor and sitting MP BC Khanduri, by 3,02,669 votes. Erstwhile Tehri royal Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah defeated Pradesh Congress president Pritam Singh by 3,00,586 votes. BJP's Ajay Tamta .
Pragya Thakur, Azam Khan among controversial candidates who won in this election
From BJP's Pragya Singh Thakur to SP's Azam Khan, candidates who courted controversies in the run-up to the 2019 general election have put up an impressive performance on their respective seats. These candidates stoked controversy during the high-voltage campaign spread over two months, at times forcing the Election Commission to bar some of them from campaigning or inviting scrutiny from their own party's leadership. Thakur, an accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts, won by a margin of 3,64,822 votes from Madhya Pradesh's Bhopal constituency, according to the results declared by the Election Commission. She was recently in the red for lauding Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse as a "patriot". Thakur got 8,66, 482 votes in the constituency, considered a stronghold of BJP, against her nearest rival Digvijaya Singh of the Congress. Singh got 5,01,279 votes. Thakur had to apologise for her remarks on 26/11 attack martyr Hemant Karkare, an IPS officer, that she had "cursed" him for ...
Saffron wave drowns Cong's gains in Rajasthan
The BJP made a clean sweep in Rajasthan again with the party bagging all 25 seats along with its ally RLP in Lok Sabha election results declared Thursday, barely five months after it lost to the Congress in the assembly polls. It was a loss of face for Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot whose son Vaibhav Gehlot was defeated in Jodhpur by BJP's Gajendra Singh Shekhawat by a margin of 2,74,440 votes. Four Union ministers of state-Rajyavardhan Rathore (Jaipur rural), Arjun Ram Meghwal (Bikaner), Gajendra Singh Shekhawat (Jodhpur) and PP Chaudhary (Pali)-were among the victorious candidates. Diya Kumari, a former BJP MLA and member of erstwhile royal family of Jaipur, won from Rajsamand while Dushyant Singh, son of former chief minister Vasundhara Raje , was elected to Lok Sabha for fourth consecutive time from Jhalwar-Baran seat. The Congress' hopes of better performance in the border state were dashed and it failed to open its account as the saffron party's vote share jumped to 58.5 per ...
Congress leaders accept rout in MP
Accepting the results of the Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chief Minister Kamal Nath said Thursday night that the Congress will review the reasons of its rout in the state. Of the 29 seats in the Congress-ruled state, the BJP has won 25 and is leading on three seat, while the Congress managed to win only one seat, Chhindwara. Nath's son Nakul Nath won from the family bastion. In a statement, Nath said, "It is true that the results are not as per our expectations but we accept the mandate and respect it....We will review it. "Victory and defeat are part of democracy... It seems we could not put our point of view across to the public in the right way," he said. The veteran Congress politician also congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP. Former chief minister Digvijay Singh, who was defeated by the BJP's Pragya Singh Thakur in Bhopal Lok Sabha seat, said he accepted the verdict with humility. Senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, who lost in ..
BJP registers historical win in HP with victory margins crossing 4.75 lakh & vote share 70 %
The ruling BJP Thursday made clean sweep in Himachal Pradesh with its candidates winning all the four Lok Sabha seats -- Shimla, Kangra, Mandi and Hamirpur -- in the hill state with record margins in the range of over three lakh votes each and securing up to 72 percent of the polled vote share. The four victorious BJP candidates included sitting MPs, Anurag Thakur and Ram Swaroop Sharma, who won Hamirpur and Mandi Lok Sabha seats respectively. The two other victorious candidates included two party MLAs Suresh Kashyap and Kishan Kapoor, who bagged Shimla and Kangra seats respectively. All four won their respective seats with record margins in the range of three lakh votes each, making their victories historical. The three-term MP and son of former state Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, Anurag Thakur retained his Hamirpur seat, defeating his nearest rival Ram Lal Thakur of Congress with a record margin of 3,99,572 votes. Anurag Thakur, also a former president of the Board of Control ...
Kummanam Rajashekharan defeated by Sashi Tharoor
Former Mizoram Governor Kummanam Rajashekharan, who contested from Thiruvananthapuram constituency was defeated atthe hands of senior Congress leader and former union minister Sashi Tharoor. For Tharoor it was a hat-trick of wins from the prestigious constituency by over a margin of nearly a lakh votes. A former diplomat and well known author, Tharoor managed to garner over 4.16 lakh votes whereas Rajashekharan got 3.16 lakh votes. The Left had fielded its sitting MLA of CPI, C Divakaran, who managed only 2.5 lakh votes. Rajasekharan had resigned as governor of the North eastern state in March to contest as the BJP's candidate in the Lok Sabha polls from Thiruvananthapuram. The 66-year-old Rajashekharan began his career as a RSS worker in the 1970s and served aspresident of the Kerala unit of the BJP between December 2015 and May 2018 before his elevation to the gubernatorial post. It was under Rajasekharan's leadership that the BJP opened its account in Kerala by ...
YSR Cong wins four LS seats in AP, leads in 18 others
: The YSR Congress won four out of the total 25 Lok Sabha seats and was leading in 18 others in Andhra Pradesh, according to results officially declared by the Election Commission. The Telugu Desam Party is ahead of the YSRC in only three parliamentary segments in the state, as per EC data. The YSRC won Tirupati (SC), Eluru, Kakinada and Vizianagaram Lok Sabha seats. Former Union Civil Aviation Minister P Ashok Gajapathi Raju was the prominent loser from Vizianagaram. He lost to B Chandrasekhar of YSRC by a margin of over 48,000 votes. Vanga Geeta Viswanath, who joined the YSRC on the eve of the elections, won the Kakinada seat.