Thiruvananthapuram, April 16 (IANS) Shashi Tharoor, the Congress candidate for Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat, cast his vote here Thursday morning. But his visit to the polling booth generated controversy with police forced to take action after opposition workers protested against him attracting media attention.
The former UN undersecretary general arrived with his mother at the polling station in L.P. School at Jawahar Nagar and expressed confidence that he will win. (Read more...)
Raipur, April 16 (IANS) Armed Maoist rebels created panic at six polling stations in Chhattisgarh's southern restive Bastar region by opening fire soon after voting for the parliamentary elections began Thursday morning, police said.
'The rebels fired at six booths in Dantewada and Narayanpur districts but no one was injured,' Chhattisgarh Additional Director General of Police Girdhari Nayak said. (Read more...)
New Delhi, April 16 (IANS) Indians began voting Thursday morning to pick a new 545-seat Lok Sabha in the first phase of staggered elections widely expected to throw up a split verdict.
Polling centres opened at 7 a.m. in 124 constituencies across 15 states and two union territories amid tight security, Election Commission officials here said.
About 143 million of India's 714 million voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the first of five rounds in 185,552 polling centres. A total of 1,715 candidates are in the fray. (Read more...)
New Delhi, April 16 (IANS) Concentrate on the base of your spine, focus on your breath and avoid spicy food. Thus go the tips from gurus as their politician disciples get into the heat and dust of electioneering in an Indian summer.
The men who tend to the spiritual needs of politicians are suggesting restraint and introspection to tide over the rough and tumble of changing political fortunes. (Read more...)
Bangalore, April 15 (IANS) Congress president Sonia Gandhi Wednesday stepped up her attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party and L.K. Advani for calling Manmohan Singh a weak prime minister, saying every one knows who are 'slaves' of the Rashtriya Swayamsevek Sangh (RSS).
'People know who functions as slaves of the RSS,' Gandhi said at an election rally in Bidar, around 670 km from Bangalore. (Read more...)
New Delhi, April 15 (IANS) The Congress Wednesday criticised Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani for skipping Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's dinner for outgoing Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee and said it indicated his scant respect for parliamentary democracy.
'It is shocking that Advani boycotted the prime minister's farewell dinner for the outgoing speaker Somnath Chatterjee. It is very clear from the disgraceful act what little respect the BJP and its leader have for parliamentary democracy,' Congress spokesperson Jayanti Natarajan told reporters here. (Read more...)
New Delhi, April 15 (IANS)An increasingly combative Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Wednesday said his decision to hit back at Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) leader L.K. Advani, who has been attacking him consistently for being a 'weak prime minister' was a conscious choice as 'enough was enough.'
'Any serious political observer knows my remarks on Advani are true. I owe it to myself and the people of India to show where the shoe pinches. Enough is enough,' Manmohan Singh said Wednesday at an interaction with members of the Editors' Guild. (Read more...)
Patna, April 15: The Congress Wednesday upped the ante and fielded against Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad a dissident MP who had been campaigning for him in Bihar's Patliputra constituency just last week.
Bihar Congress president Anil Kumar Sharma announced Wednesday that the party had nominated Vijay Singh Yadav as the Congress candidate in the largely rural Patliputra constituency, which will go to polls on May 7. (Read more...)
Barnala (Punjab), April 15 (IANS) He is a Gandhian, wants to be prime minister and has been taking on India's most politically powerful family for the last three decades with a wish to end dynastic rule. And now Mitt Singh Sehajara, 67, is back to doing what he loves - contesting against the Nehru-Gandhi clan.
'I am a diehard follower of Gandhi and believe in non-violence and peace. I have been contesting elections against the Gandhi family as I feel a common man can serve the nation better than the children of big leaders,' Sehajara, dressed in an off-white kurta-pyjama and a blue turban and lean for his age, told IANS here. (Read more...)
New Delhi, April 15 (IANS) Twirling a lock of his shoulder-length hair, Suleiman (name changed) who goes by the name Sulekha stared at a pocket mirror. Checking the lipstick shade twice over, he sighed: 'I want to vote - but what good will it do to me? How will it help my community?'.
Sulekha is a eunuch from Seelampur in east Delhi. He is one of the 7,000-odd eunuchs in the capital. (Read more...)
Ranchi, April 14 (IANS) The Election Commission Tuesday issued notice to Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and his pilot Jagjit Singh for the unauthorised landing of a helicopter in a Jharkhand school last week.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief has been asked to submit his reply by Wednesday, 4 p.m., said an official of the Election Commission. (Read more...)
Chennai, April 14 (IANS) AIADMK leader J. Jayalalitha Tuesday denied she had prime ministerial ambitions, and asserted that the alliance led by her would sweep Tamil Nadu's 39 Lok Sabha seats.
Asked if she had a desire to be the prime minister, Jayalalitha told Times Now TV channel: 'I do not have any personal ambition. All I want is that our country should prosper and take its rightful place as a global superpower.' (Read more...)
Vijaypur (Jammu and Kashmir), April 14 (IANS) Sweltering heat and dusty roads didn't stop Suman Devi and Vidya from walking a long distance to catch a 'glimpse' of two 'handsome' young leaders, Omar Abdullah and Rahul Gandhi, who addressed a joint election meeting here Tuesday.
Like Devi and Vidya, hundreds of other village women dressed in their best jostled through a big crowd to see the grandson of Indira Gandhi.
'Dikhi te leche (let's have a glimpse),' Devi in her late 40s said, as she shoved her way, pushing others to get closer to the fortified enclosure to have a close look of Gandhi and Abdullah, the scions of two political families of India. (Read more...)
New Delhi, April 14 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tuesday labelled Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a 'glorified caretaker' and said the synchronised verbal assault on their prime ministerial nominee L.K. Advani by Congress leaders was a reflection of the party's desperation.
'The orchestrated and synchronised verbal assault on L.K. Advani's leadership qualities and credentials by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi on a single day is nothing but a clear reflection of the desperation and frustration that is now gripping the top leadership of the Congress party given the emerging ground realities in favour of the BJP and the NDA,' said BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad. (Read more...)
Thiruvananthapuram, April 14 (IANS) Processions, colourful rallies, visits to temples by candidates and hectic door-to-door campaigning marked the last day of electioneering in Kerala that goes to the Lok Sabha polls on Thursday.
All the political parties and candidates put up their best ever performance as the campaigning ended Tuesday evening. (Read more...)
New Delhi, April 14 (IANS) National Democratic Alliance (NDA) prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani Tuesday lashed out at the Congress for not having done justice to Dalit icon B.R. Ambedkar.
'The Congress did not do justice to Ambedkar. He could have been sent to Lok Sabha but was defeated under a plan,' Advani said at a public rally here to mark the birth anniversary of Ambedkar. (Read more...)
Talwandi Sabo (Punjab), April 14 (IANS) Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi Tuesday renewed his attack on Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani on the Kandahar hijack episode, saying either he was not telling the truth or the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee did not trust him.
'Advaniji says he did not know about the decision of releasing terrorists in the Kandahar case. The youth of this country want to know why he did not know about such an important issue. There can only be two things - either Vajpayeeji did not trust him or he (Advani) is not telling the truth,' Rahul Gandhi told a big gathering in this Sikh holy town, 250 km from Chandigarh. (Read more...)
Pichwada (Uttar Pradesh), April 14 (IANS) Coming out in support of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Priyanka Gandhi Tuesday called him a 'strong and determined' leader and said even Mahatma Gandhi looked gentle.
'You cannot judge a person's strength from his external personality. Mahatma Gandhi was so gentle but was so strong from inside. Manmohan Singh is very strong and determined,' Priyanka Gandhi, the daughter of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, said while campaigning in the state. (Read more...)
Bhopal, April 14 (IANS) The Congress Tuesday called for a shutdown in Bhind and Datia districts of Madhya Pradesh to protest the murder of its legislator Makhan Singh Jatav the previous night, even as Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan asked the party not to politicise the killing.
Jatav was shot at from point blank range by four unidentified people near Chharetav village in Bhind district, around 550 km from here, Monday night. (Read more...)
Bhubaneswar, April 14 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Lok Sabha candidate Ashok Sahu was arrested Tuesday for making an inflammatory speech in Orissa's Kandhamal region earlier this month.
'Sahu was arrested from Phulbani town,' Kandhamal District Collector Krishan Kumar told IANS.
Sahu, who is the BJP's candidate for the Kandhamal Lok Sabha seat, was accused of delivering a communally charged speech on April 5 at a public meeting in Raikia town. He allegedly accused the church of indulging in conversion. (Read more...)
Ranchi, April 13 (IANS) In an apparent reference to Congress president Sonia Gandhi's foreign roots, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi Monday attacked her, saying that she had eaten the 'salt of the country' but was claiming that the country faced an 'internal threat'.
'Sonia Gandhi is in India for the last 30 years eating the salt of the country. And she is saying that the country faces threat from inside. Is she paying back to the country in this way?' Modi, a senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader asked while addressing a rally in Ranchi Monday. (Read more...)
Ahmedabad, April 14 (IANS) The economic downslide has hit Lok Sabha candidates hard in Gujarat.
Businessmen reeling under the impact of recession are shying away from extending their usual offers of free food, volunteers and money for the election campaign. (Read more...)
Bhopal, April 13 (IANS) A Congress legislator was shot dead by unidentified assailants when he was returning from an election meeting in Madhya Pradesh Monday evening, police said.
Makhan Singh Jatav was shot at from a point blank range by four unidentified people near Chharetav village of Bhind district, in Madhya Pradesh's Chambal region, around 550 km from here. (Read more...)
Bhopal, April 13 (IANS) A Congress legislator was shot dead by unidentified assailants when he was returning from an election meeting in Madhya Pradesh Monday evening, police said.
Makhan Singh Jatav was shot at from a point blank range by four unidentified people near Chharetav village of Bhind district, in Madhya Pradesh's Chambal region, around 550 km from here. (Read more...)
Lucknow, April 13 (IANS) Reiterating his party's election promise to curb the use of computers, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav said Monday, 'Let us put an end to any further computerisation in this country'.
'India is a country with millions of unemployed hands and if we go on computerising everything, we will soon have a bigger army of unemployed youth,' Mulayam Singh told reporters. (Read more...)
Ranchi, April 13 (IANS) Better halves are playing a key role in the election campaign in Jharkhand.
The wives of former chief ministers Arjun Munda and Madhu Koda have taken charge of their husbands' election campaigns, while the wife of Shibu Soren is expected to follow suit, as Soren is recuperating in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi. (Read more...)
Hyderabad, April 13 (IANS) With hardly any time left for the first phase of polling in Andhra Pradesh Thursday, the Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) of Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi appears to be out of the race for power but may emerge as a king maker in the event of elections throwing up the state's first-ever hung assembly.
In an indication of the shape of things to come, Chiranjeevi Sunday cancelled his meetings in Khammam and Nizamabad in the Telangana region due to poor public response. (Read more...)
New Delhi, April 13 (IANS) Former chief justice of India J.S. Verma has urged all political parties to boot criminals out of politics and not wait for 'people to resort to radical and extra-legal measures' like lobbing shoes at them. He has now started a civil society campaign for crime-free politics.
Justice Verma recently shot off letters, duly signed by over 200 individuals including former judges, lawyers, bureaucrats, academics and media professionals, to top leaders of various political parties, urging them not to field candidates with criminal antecedents. (Read more...)
New Delhi, April 13 (IANS) Want to know if the candidate you plan to vote for these elections has a criminal record? Thanks to the efforts of a recently launched 'No Criminals' campaign, you can do that now, either by logging on to their website or sending an SMS.
Just over a month old, the campaign, whose goal is to wipe out criminalisation of politics, is gaining momentum amongst people, especially youngsters. (Read more...)
Lucknow, April 13 (IANS) Nafisa Ali may have several reasons for moving from the Congress to the Samajwadi Party, but what triggered her exit, she says, was the Congress leadership's indifference to her objection against nominations for Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar.
'I was the first person to speak out against the inclusion of Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar in the Congress list,' Nafisa - who has been a national swimming champion, actor and social activist - claimed, even as she expressed confidence in her ability to win from Lucknow, where she is the Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate for the April-May Lok Sabha polls. (Read more...)
Moradabad, April 13 (IANS) On the cricket field, former Indian skipper Mohammed Azharuddin was not one for too many words, letting his bat do the talking. In his new incarnation as a Congress candidate for the Lok Sabha polls too, Azhar prefers to listen rather than to talk.
Having plunged headlong into an election campaign, Azhar, 46, has seen the crowds turn up in huge numbers at his rallies to see one of the country's most successful captains. (Read more...)
Agra, April 13 (IANS) Accusing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of 'running away' from a public debate on poll issues, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Jailey has said the Congress leader is 'frustrated' and 'weak'.
'Manmohan Singh's recent utterances clearly demonstrate his frustration. Running away from a debate with the BJP on crucial national issues only reflects his weakness,' Jaitley said at a rally of BJP youth workers here Sunday evening. (Read more...)
New Delhi, April 13 (IANS) The Congress Monday launched a blistering attack on Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) senior elader L.K. Advani, taking him on over the NDA government's handling of the 1999 Kandahar hijacking and even his age.
Speaking at separate election rallies and press conferences, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and party general secretary Rahul Gandhi targetted Advani, especially over the Kandahar hijacking. Sonia Gandhi's daughter Priyanka, referring to the BJP's 'budhiya' barbs, spoke of Advani's age. (Read more...)
