News Analysis India

Tag: Voting

  • Election Commission issues notification for first phase of Lok Sabha elections

    The Election Commission of India on Wednesday issued the notification for the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 to be conducted on April 19.

    In the notification, the ECI informed that March 28 will be the last date for filing nominations for Bihar and March 27 for Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Jammu and Kashmir, Lakshadweep and Puducherry.

    “March 30 will be the date for scrutiny of nominations for Bihar and March 28 for others,” the notification said.According to the ECI’s notification, April 2 will be the last date for withdrawal of candidatures for Bihar and March 30 for Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Jammu and Kashmir, Lakshadweep and Puducherry;

    “June 6, the date before which the election shall be completed in all the above-mentioned parliamentary constituencies,” the notification read.

    Elections will be held in 102 Lok Sabha seats in 17 States and Four Union Territories in this phase.39 seats in Tamil Nadu, 12 in Rajasthan, 8 in Uttar Pradesh, and 6 in Madhya Pradesh will go to polls in the first phase.Along with them, five seats in Uttarakhand, Assam and Maharashtra, four seats in Bihar, three in West Bengal, two in Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya and one seat in Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Jammu and Kashmir, Lakshadweep and Puducherry will also go to polls on April 19.

    The Election Commission on March 16, announced the schedule for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

    The polling will be conducted in seven phases across the nation from April 19 to June 1. The counting of votes will be on June 4.

  • UP to witness keen contest in Feb 27 Rajya Sabha polls

    Lucknow: The February 27 Rajya Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh will witness a high-pitched electoral battle ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, with the BJP fielding eight candidates and the opposition Samajwadi Party three for the 10 seats up for grabs. The outcome of the polls to the Rajya Sabha is likely to have an impact in the politically crucial state just ahead of the general elections in the country.

    The ruling BJP and the principal opposition SP have the numbers to send seven and three members respectively unopposed to the Rajya Sabha, but with the BJP fielding Sanjay Seth as its eighth candidate, a keen contest is on the cards in one of the seats.

    Seth, a local industrialist and former SP leader, joined the BJP in 2019. He filed his nomination in the presence of Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and other senior party leaders. Voting for the 10 Rajya Sabha seats will be held on Tuesday and the results will also be announced the same day.

    The BJP and the SP are the two largest parties in the 403-member state assembly with 252 MLAs and 108 MLAs respectively. The Congress, an alliance partner of the SP, has two seats. BJP ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) 13, NISHAD Party six, RLD nine, SBSP six, Jansatta Dal Loktantrik two and the BSP one. Four seats are currently vacant.

    The seven other candidates fielded by the BJP are former Union minister RPN Singh, former MP Chaudhary Tejveer Singh, general secretary of the party’s Uttar Pradesh unit Amarpal Maurya, former state minister Sangeeta Balwant (Bind) party spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi, former MLA Sadhna Singh and former Agra mayor Naveen Jain. The SP has fielded actor-MP Jaya Bachchan, retired IAS officer Alok Ranjan and Dalit leader Ramji Lal Suman. To get elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh, a candidate needs nearly 37 first preference votes, an official said.

    Elaborating further about the Rajya Sabha elections, Returning Officer Brijbhushan Dubey said, “A candidate will need 36.37 first preference votes to register a win. At present, there are 399 MLAs in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly.”

    Asked whether the three jailed MLAs will also be able to vote in the Rajya Sabha elections, Dubey told PTI that it would be decided by the court and the political party concerned.

    SP MLAs Irfan Solanki and Ramakant Yadav and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) legislator Abbas Ansari are in prison.

    Dubey further said that MLAs will enter from gate 7, take ballot papers from room 80 and head to Tilak Hall to cast their votes.

    “Polling will be held from 9 am to 4 pm. Counting will commence from 5 pm and results are likely to be announced on Tuesday night,” he added.

    Exuding confidence in the BJP’s performance in the Rajya Sabha elections, Maurya told PTI, “All BJP candidates will register a win in the Rajya Sabha elections.”

    Chief whip of the Samajwadi Party in the legislative assembly Manoj Pandey said all SP MLAs will be voting for the party’s candidates in the Rajya Sabha election.

    Asked if one of the SP candidates may eventually fall short by one vote, Pandey said, “How will we fall short? Our people had contested (the 2022 UP Assembly elections) from the SBSP and the Rashtriya Lok Dal. And, basically, they are from the SP.”

    Although Pandey exuded confidence that MLAs of the SBSP and the RLD will vote for the SP candidates, both parties have joined the BJP-led NDA.

    Apna Dal (Kamerawadi) leader Pallavi Patel, an ally of the Samajwadi Party, had earlier said that she would not vote in the Rajya Sabha polls as she did not agree with the SP decision to field Bachchan and Ranjan.

    Speaking to PTI on Sunday, she said, “I will be voting in the Rajya Sabha elections. That is my right and my duty. But I have not decided yet who will be the candidate.”

    On whether the two jailed SP MLAs would be casting their votes, Pandey said, “The party is making efforts to bring them to Lucknow so that they can cast their votes.”

    “All the three candidates fielded by the party will emerge victorious in the Rajya Sabha elections,” former chief secretary of the state and SP candidate Ranjan told PTI.

    He added that unlike the Lok Sabha elections or the legislative assembly elections, Rajya Sabha polls are a different ball game altogether.

    Congress MLA from Pharenda in Maharajganj district told PTI, “Now, with the Congress and Samajwadi Party forging an alliance for the upcoming Lok Sabha election, the picture here is also very clear. We will vote for the candidates fielded by the SP. The candidate of the SP will be our candidate. We will vote for the SP candidate, about whom we will be told by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.”

    Ramashish Rai UP unit chief of Rashtriya Lok Dal, which recently switched over to the NDA fold said that all the RLD MLAs will vote for the BJP candidates in the ongoing Rajya Sabha elections.

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  • Mobile internet services suspended in Jaipur tehsil ahead of RS polls

    By PTI

    JAIPUR: Mobile internet services have been suspended for 12 hours starting 9 pm on Thursday in Jaipur’s Amber tehsil where the Congress and other supporting MLAs are staying ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls.

    The divisional commissioner issued the order to suspend the services stating security threat to the protected people staying and moving in the area.

    The MLAs are staying at Hotel Leela in the teshil since evening after being shifted from Udaipur.

    They will go to the assembly building for the Rajya Sabha elections on Friday morning from this hotel.

    Taking a dig at the Congress, BJP state president Satish Poonia tweeted the order saying, “Internet shutdown in Amber due to fear of paper leak.”

  • Election Commission to explore remote voting 

    By Express News Service

    NEW DELHI: The Election Commission on Tuesday said it will start exploring possibilities of remote voting on a pilot basis.

    The commission also said a committee would be appointed to examine issues of migrant voters, which will also seek input from political parties.

    “Voters migrate from the place of their registration to cities and other places for education, employment and other purposes. It becomes difficult for them to return to their registered polling stations to cast their vote. The Commission felt that time has come to explore possibilities of remote voting, maybe on a pilot basis,” the statement said.

    “A committee would be set up to examine the issues of migrant voters. Given that voters and political parties are the primary stakeholders, more comprehensive consultation with all stakeholders, including parties, would be started after that,” it added.

    The EC has been thinking about remote voting over the last few years.

    The statement of the election commission came days after the Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar undertook an hours-long trek to some of Uttarakhand’s most remote polling booths in Chamoli district in the recent assembly polls to assess challenges faced by election officials. 

    He had visited Dumak and Kalgoth and interacted with both villagers and polling parties there.

    The poll panel also announced doubling the remuneration of polling officials going to such booths three days before voting day.

    It was also decided at a meeting to develop special water and shockproof, extra protective backpacks or cases to carry EVM-VVPATs and safeguard the machines provided to all such teams to aid hands-free movement in rugged terrain.

    The remuneration for polling officials used to be a uniform per diem amount for all alike.

    Chief Electoral Officers of the states and Union Territories shall specifically notify such polling stations for enhanced remuneration during the election, the statement said.

  • Counting for 1st phase of Jharkhand panchayat polls to start on Tuesday

    By PTI

    RANCHI: Counting of votes for the first phase of the panchayat elections in Jharkhand will start on Tuesday amid tight security, an official said.

    The first of the four-phase panchayat polls took place on May 14. Over 68 per cent of the 52 lakh voters exercised their franchise.

    A total of 1,127 panchayats covering 72 blocks in 21 districts of the state went to the polls in the first phase. Panchayat elections in the state are not held on party lines.

    SEC secretary Radhe Shyam Prasad said, “The counting for the first phase (of the elections) will start from 8 am on Tuesday. It will continue till the evening.” As the polling was conducted in ballot papers, it will take time to declare the final results, the official said.

    In the first phase, elections were scheduled to be held for 16,757 posts, 14,079 panchayat members, 1,127 mukhiyas, 1,405 Panchayat Samiti members and 146 Zilla Parishad members.

    However, a total of 6,231 candidates have already been declared winners unopposed in the first phase, as only one candidate was left in each of those posts after withdrawal and rejection of nomination papers.

    So, the elections were held for 9,819 posts, 7,303 panchayat members, 1,117 mukhiyas, 1,256 panchayat committee members and 143 Zilla Parishad members. The other three phases of the elections will be held on May 19, 24 and 27.

    Meanwhile, re-polling in 26 booths across eight districts passed off peacefully on Monday with 59.14 per cent voter turnout, Prasad said. The SEC had received complaints regarding ballot paper errors from several booths during the polling on Saturday.

  • Today, there is an uproar on the issue of paddy procurement, voting will be done on the demand for supplementary budget grants.

    Today is the third day of the budget session of the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly. Today, the session is likely to be ruckus on the issue of paddy procurement. BJP members will surround the government over the issue of irregularities in paddy procurement at the support price.
    Brijmohan Agrawal will take up this matter through attention notice. Most of the questions related to the Department of Health and Panchayat Minister TS Singhdev and Industry Minister Kavasi Lakhma have been raised. Voting on the Demands for Grants of the Third Supplementary Estimates for the financial year 2020-2021.

  • If Congress appoints ‘external’ as party president, then believe in Nehru’s Democratic system: Prime Minister Modi

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday hit back at Congress for its leader Shashi Tharoor’s ‘chaiwala’ remark and dared the party to make someone outside the Gandhi family its president for at least five years.

    Modi said if Congress makes someone who is not from the (Gandhi) family as party president for at least five years, then he will believe that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru really created a truly democratic system there. Addressing a campaign rally for the second phase of Chhattisgarh Assembly elections scheduled on November 20, Modi said, “I want to challenge them. Let some good leader of
    Congress outside of the family become the party president for five years, then I will say that Nehru ji really created a truly democratic system there”.

    Modi’s attack came after Tharoor credited institutional structures created by Jawaharlal Nehru for a “chaiwala” like Narendra Modi becoming the prime minister of the country.

    The PM has repeatedly attacked the Gandhi family on the poll trail in Chhattisgarh and continued in the same vein, saying four generations of Congress ruled the nation and they should give an account of what they have done for the country.

    “People have disproved that it was the “right of only one family” to speak from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi,” he said.

    “You can’t understand the difficulties faced by the poor but a chaiwalla can,” Modi said in an attack on the Congress and the Gandhis.

    “They (Congress) have kept the country in the dark with their lies which are ingrained in their minds,” Modi said, not mincing words to target the principal opposition party and its top leaders.

    On the impressive turnout in the first phase of polling held on November 10, Modi said, “People of Bastar in Chhattisgarh gave a strong response to Naxals by registering record voting percentage in the first phase”.