India's political landscape is ablaze with activity! From the ongoing debates surrounding the new farm bills and their impact on rural India, to the upcoming state elections shaping the national narrative, the stakes couldn't be higher. Key political figures are maneuvering strategically, with alliances shifting and power dynamics constantly in flux. The opposition's challenge to the ruling party is intensifying, sparking vigorous debates on crucial policy matters including economic reforms and social justice initiatives. Parliamentary proceedings are filled with heated exchanges, reflecting the deep divisions within the nation. This evolving political climate directly impacts the lives of every Indian citizen, influencing everything from economic opportunities to social welfare programs. Stay informed about the latest developments in Indian politics, from crucial legislative decisions to grassroots movements, by exploring Abtak.com for in-depth analysis and breaking news updates. Understanding the intricacies of our political system is crucial; stay engaged, stay informed, and stay ahead.
New Delhi: The general secretary of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), M A Baby, on Thursday appealed to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) to ensure that the constitutional right to vote is guaranteed for all citizens. He was responding to the large-scale deletion of voters from the electoral rolls in poll-bound West Bengal, following the recent Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls carried out by the Election Commission of India (ECI). Quoting reports, Baby said that over 90 lakh voters, which is roughly 12 per cent of the state's electorate, have been excluded from the rolls. "A significant number were placed under an impervious category of 'under adjudication,' only to find that the promised mechanisms for redressal were inaccessible and non-operational," said Baby in his letter written to Gyanesh Kumar. "We have, since the outset, held that contrary to a routine administrative updating of electoral rolls, the SIR represents a systematic exercise in mass disenfranchisement, marked by arbitrary criteria such as 'logical consistency' and the increasing reliance on algorithm-driven exclusions, rather than transparent, field-based verification. Unlike earlier exercises, the voter was treated as a suspect, and the burden to prove otherwise rested on them. We are not going into the tremendous monetary loss, inconvenience, mental trauma and even deaths that this obnoxious exercise has led to," he wrote.
Ludhiana, Jun 7 (PTI) BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh on Saturday said the Election Commission (ECI) should immediately ban AAP leaders facing criminal charges from campaigning for the upcoming bypoll to the Ludhiana West Assembly seat. Taking strong exception to AAP leaders Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia - both accused in the Delhi excise policy case - campaigning for the by-election, Chugh demanded that they be prohibited from entering the constituency. The bypoll to the Ludhiana West Assembly seat will take place on June 19 and the results will be out on June 23. The seat f ...Read More >
Mumbai: A day after leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi alleged "match fixing" between BJP and ECI, state Congress chief Harshawardhan Sapkal on Sunday demanded narco tests on chief electoral officer (CEO) S Chockalingam and then additional CEO Kiran Kulkarni to expose the truth in Maharashtra's "vote theft" in the 2024 assembly election.Sapkal said it is BJP and CM Devendra Fadnavis who have jumped in with rebuttals, instead of the election watchdog. Fadnavis had on Saturday called Rahul's allegations an outright lie and in an article published in a national newspaper and a ...Read More >
KOLKATA: Trinamool Congress Chairperson and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday strongly objected to the Election Commission of India's (ECI) latest guidelines, which mandate a specific identity card proving citizenship and submission of a self-attested declaration of Indian citizenship for inclusion in the voters' list. Banerjee alleged that the ECI was working in coordination with the Central Government and accused it of "providing emergency weapons to help the BJP." Directly targeting Union Home Minister Amit Shah, she claimed, "Modiji (Narendra Modi) is the Prime Minis ...Read More >
Rahul Gandhi criticized the RSS after its general secretary, Dattatreya Hosabale, suggested reviewing the terms "socialist" and "secular" in the Constitution's Preamble. Gandhi alleged the RSS prefers "Manusmriti" over the Constitution, aiming to deprive marginalized communities of their rights. He vowed to defend the Constitution against the RSS's alleged agenda.leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday said the mask of the RSS has come off again as it wants "Manusmriti" and not the Constitution, after the ...Read More >
The Election Commission introduces new rules for voter enrollment. Voters enrolled after 2003-04 must now provide proof of citizenship. This includes a self-attested declaration and supporting documents. The move aims to remove illegal immigrants from the electoral roll. Bihar will be the first state to implement the special intensive revision. Other states will follow soon.In a move to identify and remove illegal immigrants wrongly included in the electoral rolls, the Election Commission has man ...Read More >
New Delhi: Several Opposition parties Friday denounced RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale's call to review the words 'socialist' and 'secular' in the Preamble, terming it a "deliberate assault" on the soul of the Constitution. The attack came a day after the RSS proposed reviewing the two words, saying they were included during the Emergency and were never part of the Constitution drafted by BR Ambedkar. While the Congress saw it as a "deliberate assault" on the soul of the Constitution and claimed the RSS-BJP had never accepted Ambedkar's Constitution, the CPI(M) said the demand expo ...Read More >
New Delhi, Nov 26: The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking directions to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to introduce ballot paper in place of EVMs (Electronic Voting Machines). A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and P.B. Varale rejected the prayer to return to the ballot system due to the alleged manipulability of EVMs. "When you lose, EVMs are tampered with; when you win, EVMs are fine," remarked the apex court, when the petitioner referred to the statements made by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and his predecessor Jagan Mohan ...Read More >
NEW DELHI: In a significant step toward digital transformation, the Election Commission of India (ECI) has revamped its post-election data reporting process by introducing a streamlined, technology-driven system for generating Index Cards and Statistical Reports. The initiative, aimed at enhancing data accessibility and timeliness, replaces the earlier manual process that often delayed dissemination. Under the leadership of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, the new system leverages automation and data integration to enab ...Read More >
New Delhi, Jun 8 (PTI) Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary M A Baby on Sunday expressed concern over an accident involving the convoy of RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, and demanded that the incident be probed. A speeding truck hit two vehicles of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader's cavalcade in Bihar's Vaishali district early Saturday. While Yadav escaped unhurt, three security personnel were injured in the accident, police said. In a post on X, Baby said, "Deeply concerned about the accident involving Tejashwi Yadav's convoy in Vaishali. Relieved to hear that you are safe". ...Read More >
New Delhi, Jun 26 (PTI) A day after the Congress urged the Election Commission to provide machine-readable digital copy of the Maharashtra voters' list, EC sources on Thursday said the demand is "not tenable" under the prevailing legal framework, asserting that a similar plea of the party was junked by the Supreme Court in 2019. The EC sources said while Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been demanding for machine-readable, digital copy of the electoral roll for the last seven months, such demand by the Congress is "not new". Also Read | Udhampur Encounter: 1 Terrorist Killed in Gunfight With ...Read More >
New Delhi: Alleging "blatant misuse" of agencies to defame its leaders, AAP on Thursday questioned why the first information report filed against former Delhi ministers Saurabh Bharadwaj and Satyendar Jain was being kept under wraps and "selective" press notes were being leaked to the media.Bharadwaj, who is Delhi AAP convener, alleged that only two former ministers were named in the case without any reasonable cause while all the officers of the health and public works departments, who were actually responsible for executing the hospital projects, were spared. "Is the FIR so baseless that BJP ...Read More >
VIJAYAWADA: The State government on Friday accorded approvals to a slew of industries. Among those are Krishnapatnam Power Corporation Limited (KPCL), which is set to establish a 350 MW Solar and Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) in Thamminapatnam and Mommidi villages of SPSR Nellore district with a Rs 1,225 crore investment, creating 575 jobs. Furthermore, the government also waived off a Rs 54 crore extension of time fee, contingent on project completion within two years as per the Andhra Pradesh Integrated Clean Energy Policy-2024. The government also allocated 22.80 acres at MPSEZ in N ...Read More >
New Delhi, Jun 8 (PTI) Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary M A Baby on Sunday expressed concern over an accident involving the convoy of RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, and demanded that the incident be probed. A speeding truck hit two vehicles of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader's cavalcade in Bihar's Vaishali district early Saturday. While Yadav escaped unhurt, three security personnel were injured in the accident, police said. Also Read | Encroachers Can't Claim Right To Continue Occupying Public Land, Says Delhi High Court. In a post on X, Baby said, "Deeply concerned a ...Read More >
Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday raised questions over the fresh electoral roll revision guidelines issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI) ahead of Bihar assembly polls scheduled this year. Expressing apprehensions, Banerjee said that these fresh guidelines might be implemented in Bengal ahead of the assembly polls in 2026. Speaking to ET, Banerjee said that she has apprehensions that these guidelines may be even worse that National Register of Citizens (NRC), if implemented. "How will poor people get documents? Are they doing this to establish the NR ...Read More >
New Delhi [India], June 26 (ANI): Sources within the Election Commission of India (ECI) have clarified that the Indian National Congress' (INC) ongoing demand for machine-readable, digital copies of electoral rolls is 'not legally tenable' and has already been conclusively settled by the Supreme Court. Officials pointed out that this issue was earlier raised by former Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee President Kamal Nath in 2018 through written petition (C) No. 935 of 2018. The Supreme Court had definitively ruled in favour of the Election Commission's position in that case. While acknowled ...Read More >
Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday raised questions over the fresh electoral roll revision guidelines issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI) ahead of Bihar assembly polls scheduled this year. Expressing apprehensions, Banerjee said that these fresh guidelines might be implemented in Bengal ahead of the assembly polls in 2026. Speaking to ET, Banerjee said that she has apprehensions that these guidelines may be even worse that National Register of Citizens ( ...Read More >
NEW DELHI: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav on Friday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, accusing them of trying to erase the names of poor and marginalised voters from the electoral rolls."The Election Commission has suddenly announced a special intensive revision. This means that the voter list published in February, which had the latest additions and deletions, has now been set aside."He said that the entire list of eight crore Bihari voters has been sidelined, and now a fresh voter list will be created from scratch.He raised doubts over why this ...Read More >
NEW DELHI: The Left parties on Friday strongly condemned RSS Sarkaryavah Dattatreya Hosabale's call for the removal of "socialism" and "secularism" from the Preamble of the Constitution, denouncing it as an assault on India's founding values. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] stated that the demand exposed the RSS's long-standing agenda to subvert the Constitution and replace the secular democratic republic with a Hindu Rashtra. "RSS's demand to remove socialism and secularism from the Constitution's Preamble is a direct assault on India's core values. The RSS has always upheld ...Read More >
NCP (SP) leader Supriya Sule is consulting experts on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) following Maharashtra's assembly poll results. The opposition questions EVM credibility after the Mahayuti coalition's significant win. Sule advocates for ballot papers, citing other countries' adoption, and will announce a final decision soon.NCP (SP) leader Supriya Sule on Saturday said the opinion of experts is being sought over the "EVM issue" in the wake of the Maharashtra assembly polls' mandate as she b ...Read More >
New Delhi [India], June 5 (ANI): The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday announced that it would streamline its technology-driven system for generating Index Cards and various other post-election statistical reports. The new system will ensure faster reporting through automation and data integration. "This upgraded mechanism replaces the traditional manual methods, which were often time-consuming and prone to delays. By leveraging automation and data integration, the new system ensures faster reporting," the press note issued by the Election Commission read. Also Read | Delhi: Hig ...Read More >
New Delhi [India], June 8 (ANI): BJP MP Gulam Ali Khatana, who was part of the all-party parliamentary delegation to Europe, said that during their recently conclued visit they successfully communicated India's development story and its resolute stand against terrorism, particularly emanating from Pakistan. Highlighting the delegation's key discussions during the tour, Khatana told ANI, 'We discussed how we dismantled the terrorism factory in Pakistan by responding... We also talked about tourism infrastructure, G20 Summit, and projects like the six-lane roads, bridges, solar initiatives, our ...Read More >
New Delhi, Jun 26 (PTI) A day after the Congress urged the Election Commission to provide machine-readable digital copy of the Maharashtra voters' list, EC sources on Thursday said the demand is "not tenable" under the prevailing legal framework, asserting that a similar plea of the party was junked by the Supreme Court in 2019. The EC sources said while Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been demanding for machine-readable, digital copy of the electoral roll for the last seven months, such demand by the Congress is "not new". "Rather, it forms part of a strategy by the political party for wel ...Read More >
NEW DELHI: Former Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud has raised some concerns about simultaneous state and parliamentary elections in his submissions to a joint parliamentary committee and called for a level-playing field between smaller and national parties, people aware of the matter said on Thursday. Ex-CJI Chandrachud and another former CJI, JS Khehar, are set to attend on July 11 a meeting of the JPC examining the Constitution (129th Amendment) Bill and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill, which are intended to roll out simultaneous polls in the country, the pe ...Read More >
Thiruvananthapuram, Jun 27 (PTI) Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday condemned the RSS's call to review the words 'socialist' and 'secular' in the Indian Constitution's Preamble, describing it as "a brazen attempt to dismantle the core ideals of our Republic." In a post on 'X,' the chief minister said, "Invoking the emergency to discredit these principles is a deceitful move, especially when the RSS colluded with the Indira Gandhi Government during that time for its own survival." "To use that period now to undermine the Constitution reflects sheer hypocrisy and political opportun ...Read More >
New Delhi, February 4: Delhi is set to vote on February 5 to elect a new government, with results to be announced on February 8. The Delhi assembly election 2025 battle is fierce, with AAP striving to retain power while BJP and Congress aim to challenge its dominance in the national capital. Ahead of the polling, here's a detailed article on how to vote, how to check name in voter list, how to download voter slip and how to find polling station. The Election Commission has mandated voter identification for polling in Delhi assembly elections 2025. Voters must carry their Voter ID card issued ...Read More >
New Delhi: Rahul Gandhi, Leader of Opposition on Friday alleged discrepancies in recently concluded Maharashtra Assembly Elections. He was accompanied by his Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) partners Sanjay Raut and Supriya Sule when he the Congress leader raised concerns over the surge in new voters, particularly between the 2024 Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections in Maharashtra. Gandhi said that 39 lakh new voters were added in just five months after the Lok Sabha polls. "In five years between Vidhan Sabha 2019 and Lok Sabha 2024 elections, 32 lakh voters were added to the electoral rolls in Mahar ...Read More >
New Delhi, June 5 (SocialNews.XYZ) To mitigate delays in poll data dissemination, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Thursday approved a technology-driven system to generate Index Cards and various statistical reports after elections. The upgraded mechanism replaces the traditional manual methods, which were often time-consuming and prone to delays, said an official. Index Cards form the foundation for generating about 35 Statistical Reports for Lok Sabha elections and 14 for state Assembly elections, he said. "By leveraging automation and data integration, the new system ensures ...Read More >
Chennai: Chief minister M K Stalin said on Wednesday the BJP govt at the Centre delayed the census to 2027 only to undertake a delimitation exercise and reduce Tamil Nadu's representation in Parliament.Terming the move a 'betrayal,' Stalin alleged that by not opposing the BJP's plan to reduce TN's parliamentary representation, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami has become an accomplice to the 'betrayal.' Stalin levelled the charge after the Centre announced that the census will comme ...Read More >
In my Parliament speech on February 3, and in a subsequent press conference, I had expressed my disquiet about the conduct of the November 2024 Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha elections. I have doubted the fairness of Indian elections, not every time, not everywhere, but often enough. I am not talking of small-scale cheating, but of industrial-scale rigging involving the capture of our national institutions. But if some earlier election outcomes seemed odd, the outcome of the 2024 Maharashtra Vidhan Sa ...Read More >
New Delhi: On Leader of the Opposition Mr Rahul Gandhi's demand for machine-readable, digital copy of the electoral roll for the last seven months, the sources in Election Commission of India (ECI) on Thursday said that this is not something new but a part of well thought out strategy of the party which it has been following for the last eight years. Referring to the Supreme Court case of 2019, Kamal Nath v. Election Commission of India, (2019) 2 SCC 260, sources said the demand reiterated by Mr Gandhi is not tenable within the contours of the prevailing legal framework. Sources added that "t ...Read More >