Jammu and Kashmir election polling latest updates
Voters in Kathua booth demand repolling over EVM malfunctioning
Voters in a polling booth of Kathua district alleged that when the button of an EVM was pressed to vote for the BJP, it remained pressed for a while. Due to this, even when the votes were polled for other parties, the machine polled in favour of BJP candidate. They appealed for re-polling.
Input by Bivek Mathur/101Reporters
Chhattisgarh election voting latest updates
Polling personnel dies of heart attack
At Antagarh polling booth number 186 Kamta, one polling personnel, assistant teacher Tukalu Ram Nareti, died due to cardiac arrest. As per reports, he developed chest pain around 6 am and died in the polling centre. Kanker collector KL Chouhan said that his body was shifted to hospital while other personnel was deputed.
Input by KN Kishore/101reporters
Maharashtra election polling latest updates
Two villages in Osmanabad district boycott voting
Uttar Pradesh election latest updates
Sadhvi Pragya alleges torture by jail officials
BJP candidates from Bhopal Sadhvi Pragya alleged that she was tortured by jail officials. "They wanted me to accept that I was involved in a blast in which several Muslims were killed. Subah ho jati thi pit'te pit'te, log badal jate the peetne wale, lekin pitne wali main sirf akeli rehti thi. (Night would turn into day as they would keep beating me up. The officials would change, but I would remain there)." She also broke down while addressing the press conference.
#WATCH: Alleging torture by jail officials, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, BJP Lok Sabha candidate from Bhopal, breaks down while addressing the party workers pic.twitter.com/UVUomvmJZ2
— ANI (@ANI) April 18, 2019
Uttar Pradesh election polling latest updates
Polling resumes in Gajupura after being stalled for two hours
Polling in Gajupura in Nagina, resumed after being stalled for at least two hours on Thursday. The village was boycotting the election over non development, after which the police resorted to mild lathi charge. The village headman was also injured in the incident.
Input by Rohit Kumar and Sadiq Khan/101Reporters
Jammu and Kashmir election voting latest updates
Voters queue up in Ganderbal
People await to cast vote at Wangath Kangan of Ganderbal district, which is the native village of Mian Altaf, who is a former minister from the National Conference.
Input by Mudassir Kaloo/101Reporters
Jammu and Kashmir election latest updates
Voters protest in Reasi after poll officials 'change' faulty EVM
People of Dada area in Reasi district held protest after a faulty EVM was allegedly changed by election officials. They also raised anti-BJP slogans like 'gundagardi nahi chalegi' and 'BJP hai hai'.
Input by Bivek Mathur/101Reporters
North states Lok Sabha Election voting LATEST updates: BJP candidates from Bhopal Sadhvi Pragya alleged that she was tortured by jail officials. She also broke down while addressing the party workers.
The father of a victim in Malegaon blast has filed application against Sadhvi Pragya Thakur after she was declared BJP candidate from Bhopal. According to ANI, the application in an NIA court has questioned her candidature, citing her health, which was one of the reasons in her bail application.
By 4 pm, Chhattisgarh recorded 60 percent polling, while Jammu and Kashmir saw 38.6 percent voting.
The Election Commission had told Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi’s to desist from making references to defence forces for political propaganda. Naqvi made the remark at a public meeting in Rampur on 3 April.
Till 3 pm, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh recorded 39 percent voter turnout, while Chhattisgarh saw 48 percent polling.
As the polling was going on, the youth pelted stones at the security forces to disrupt the electoral process in Charari Sharief area of Budgam. The forces retaliated with heavy use of tear smoke shells. A vendor said that his vegetables were scattered on the road and he was robbed of money, too, by the forces. Due to the stone-pelting, the polling percentage was thin. Only 42 votes were cast by 2 pm at Trajbal polling station in Charari Sharief.
The Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal alliance has fielded new SP entrant Poonam Sinha from Lucknow. Sinha filed her nomination papers on Thursday. She is currently leading a roadshow through Lucknow, in which she is joined by her husband, Congress's Patna Sahib candidate Shatrughn Sinha and Samajwadi Party MP Dimple Yadav.
Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has filed his nomination from Azamgarh. Akhilesh, this time, is contesting from the seat traditionally held by his father Mulayam Singh Yadav.
As the high profile Srinagar Parliamentary constituency goes to polls in the second phase of ongoing Lok Sabha elections, a complete shutdown is being observed across the Kashmir valley after a boycott call given by Hurriyat leaders, leading to a paltry turnout of 4.37 percent at 1 pm.
On Thursday morning, as polling started on a dull note, the streets were deserted and all shops and business establishments remained shut and the traffic was off the roads.
Kanwar Singh Tanwar, the BJP's MP candidate from Amroha said on Thursday that fake voting was taking place and one way to stop it would be to check women in burkhas for their identity. During the first phase of polling, BJP leader Sanjeev Balyan too had made a similar comment.
NC leader Omar Abdullah after casting his vote at a polling station in Munshi Bagh Area in Srinagar constituency talked about Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur. "BJP have given ticket (from Bhopal) to a candidate who is not only an accused in a terror case but is also out on bail on health grounds. If her health condition doesn't permit her to be in jail, how does it permit her to contest polls?" he asked.
Omar's father Farooq is the NC candidate from Srinagar.
The Election Commission has taken cognisance of BJP MP Bhola Singh's entry into a polling booth in Bulandshahr after placing a call to the District Magistrate who reportedly asked a security officer to let Singh and his supporters in. The Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer's official Twitter handle replied to a video tweeted by a journalist, saying they have asked for more information in this regard.
Protesting against the fact that their polling booth is in Dhampur area, which is far away, villagers of Gajpura which falls under Bijnor have decided to boycott the election. The number of protesters has gone up to nearly 600, prompting officials of the district administration to reach the village in an effort to convince voters otherwise.
Bulandshahr MP Bhola Singh, when stopped by security personnel at the entrance of a polling booth, can be seen in a video as having placed a call to the District Magistrate who then facilitated the BJP leader and his supporters' entry into the polling booth. The security officer fielding the call can be heard saying that he is not allowed to let leaders go near the EVM. However, in the course of the conversation, he agrees and ultimately allows Singh inside.
A polling official deputed at polling booth number 186 in Kanker of Chhattisgarh has died of heart attack while he was on election duty on Phase 2 of the polls. Three constituencies of Chhattisgarh have gone to polls on Thursday, including Kanker.
BSP chief Mayawati took to Twitter early on Thursday, as Phase 2 of the elections got underway. In successive tweets the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are as nervous as the Congress was during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. She had earlier tweeted on the Election Commission's discrimination against non-BJP leaders.
People have begun queuing up outside booth number number 46 in Gantholi village of Govardhan block. Voting is yet to begin here due to EVM malfunction. Problems with EVMs have plagued voting in several stations at Mathura, Hathras and Aligarh across the state.
Not even a single vote has been cast at booth number 166 of Nagla Shadi village in Agra Lok Sabha constituency. The villagers here are boycotting the elections in protest against lack of developmental measures undertaken by the government.
Polling has started amid tight security for the Srinagar Parliamentary seat which will see former chief minister and NC president, Farooq Abdullah, pitted against People's Conference candidate, Irfan Ansari, People's Democratic Party candidate, Aga Mohsin, and BJP's Khalid Jehangir.
A day ago, incidents of stone pelting took place in Beerwah, the Assembly constituency which was represented by former CM and NC vice president, Omar Abdullah. A petrol bomb was also hurled on the residence of an ex NC MLA raising tensions here.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati has questioned the Election Commission as to why no action has been taken against Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath who is allegedly "trying to influence voters by visiting temples." Mayawati also accused him of visiting the houses of dalits and having food there, for the same purpose.
Due to EVM snags voting is yet to start at booth number 201 in Agra and booth number 148 in Mathura. EVMs developing technical snags has posed quite the challenge for the EC in these Lok Sabha elections. More than 100 EVMs had to be changed during polling hours in the first phase of voting in different parliamentary constituencies in Uttar Pradesh. Polling at Rithora in Balapur has reportedly been stopped due to snags in the EVM.
Mobile internet services have been snapped in Srinagar and other parts of the Valley as a precautionary measure, as Srinagar and Udhampur parliamentary constituencies go to vote on Thursday in the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
In the north, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, and Jammu and Kashmir will go to polls during the second phase of election on Thursday. From the west, only Maharashtra will have polling for ten of its constituencies: Buldhana, Akola, Amravati in Vidarbha and Hingoli, Nanded, Parbhani, Beed, Osmanabad, Latur in Marathwada and Solapur in south-western Maharashtra.
Uttar Pradesh Congress president Raj Babbar and BJP's Hema Malini are among the 85 candidates contesting for eight Lok Sabha seats going to polls on Thursday — Nagina (SC), Amroha, Bulandshahr (SC), Aligarh, Hathras (SC), Fatehpur Sikri, Mathura and Agra (SC).
Fatehpur Sikri will see a triangular battle between Babbar, BJP's Rajkumar Chahar and BSP's Shreebhagwan Sharma, who is a two-time MLA from Debai assembly constituency of Bulandshahr.
In the temple-town constituency of Mathura, Hema Malini is seeking re-election after winning the seat in the 2014 general election. The other candidates in the fray are Kunwar Narendra Singh of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and Mahesh Pathak of the Congress.
In Amroha, sitting BJP MP Kanwar Singh Tanwar will lock horns with Bahujan Samaj Party's Kunwar Danish Al, who recently joined the party after quitting as the general secretary of the Janata Dal-Secular.
The eight Lok Sabha seats were bagged by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014. This time it faces a tough fight from the Samajwadi Party-BSP-RLD alliance.
Bihar will witness polling in five Lok Sabha seats which are important for Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U). The fate of 68 candidates will be decided by 86.01 lakh voters across Bhagalpur, Banka, Kishanganj, Katihar and Purnea Lok Sabha constituencies. Voting will be held from 7 am to 6 pm at all places except Katoria and Belhar Assembly segments under Banka constituency, where it will conclude two hours early.
The Janata Dal (United) is contesting from all the five seats, including Purnea which it had won in 2014 contesting separately from the BJP-led NDA. The BJP had contested all the five seats in the last general elections and lost all of these.
Purnea MP Santosh Kumar Kushwaha of the JD(U) is in a straight fight with Uday Singh of the Congress who had won the seat on BJP ticket in 2004 and 2009 but quit the saffron party in protest that it is giving "too many" seats to the JD(U). Uday Singh is the younger brother of Nand Kishore Singh, a bureaucrat who is currently chairman of the 15th Finance Commission. Their mother Madhuri Singh had won the seat twice in the 1980s as a Congress candidate.
Another major candidate is former Union minister Tariq Anwar who seeks to retain Katihar as a Congress nominee. He had won the seat on an NCP ticket five years ago. A co-founder of the NCP, Anwar returned to the Congress in 2018 after two decades. He had won the seat for the Congress four times in the 1980s and the 1990s. The JD(U) has fielded Dulal Chandra Goswami there.
In Jammu and Kashmir, over 29.81 lakh voters will decide the fate of 24 candidates, including former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah and Union minister Jitendra Singh, contesting the Srinagar and Udhampur seats, which go to polls in the second phase.
Authorities have deployed over 80 companies for election duty in the twin constituencies of Jammu and Kashmir. The twin constituencies have 2,981,083 registered electors. Twelve candidates each are in fray for both Srinagar and Udhampur parliamentary constituencies.
In Chhattisgarh, Kanker, Rajnandgaon and Mahasamund — all with heavy Maoist presence — will go to the polls Thursday amid tight security to decide the fate of 36 candidates. There are 36 candidates in the fray in these seats, but the main fight is likely to be between the ruling Congress and the main Opposition BJP.
The Kanker Lok Sabha constituency has eight Assembly segments and of these, polling in four — Anatgarh, Keshkal, Bhanupratappur and Kanker — will be held from 7 am to 3 pm in view of Maoist threat. In rest of the Assembly segments polling time is from 7 am to 5 pm.
The Rajnandgaon Lok Sabha constituency also consists of eight Assembly segments. One of them — Manpur-Mohla — will witness polling from 7 am to 3 pm, while voters in rest of them can vote from 7 am to 5 pm.
Of the 2,322 polling stations in Rajnandgaon, 279 have been marked as hypersensitive and 302 as sensitive. The polling time in the Mahasamund constituency is from 7 am to 5 pm except in six hypersensitive booths at Odh, Kamabhaundi, Amammora, Badegobra, Sahbinkachhar and Kodomali villages where the voting time is from 7 am to 3 pm.
Modi reached Australia on Monday for a three-day visit to strengthen bilateral relations between Sydney and New Delhi. This is the last leg of his three-nation visit. Before this, he went to Japan and Papua New Guinea
The primary argument of Opposition for boycotting inauguration is that the Parliament, the embodiment of India’s Constitution, be unveiled by the President, and not the PM
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the new Parliament building on 28 May. However, the event has triggered a political row between the Opposition and the government. Parties like the Congress and Trinamool argue that it’s an insult not to have the president do the honours
