Election Tracker LIVE: Priyanka Gandhi to Address First Press Meet as Neta

BJP National President Amit Shah hit out at the opposition alliance, saying it 'lacked' leaders, policies and philosophy, and billed his party-led NDA as "strong." Taking potshots at the DMK-Congress combine, he said the proposed alliance was not for the benefit of Tamil Nadu but only to indulge in "scam and corruption."

After forging an alliance with the OBC-dominated Mahaan Dal, the Congress on Thursday announced that BJP MLA Avtar Singh Bhadana is also set to join the party. Bhadana, an MLA from Mirapur seat in Uttar Pradesh, will officially join the party in Priyanka Gandhi’s presence at the UPCC office in Lucknow. 

After addressing a rally in Uttarakhand, PM Modi will kick off the BJP's Lok Sabha campaign in Madhya Pradesh from Hoshangabad district. He will address a public meeting at Itarsi in Hoshangabad district on Friday afternoon. He will also address another public meeting at Dhar in Madhya Pradesh on Saturday.   

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is scheduled to address a rally in Rudrapur in Uttarakhand, was held up at the airport for about four hours as his helicopter could not take off due to inclement weather. The prime minister, who landed at the airport around 7 am, began his onward journey around 11:15 am when the weather improved.

Rahul Gandhi said that while the prime minister "insults" him, his family and the Congress party, he had hugged Modi in Parliament. "Hatred can be defeated only by love. He has hatred and the love in me countered that hatred," the Congress president said.

Addressing a two-day meet of the All India Congress Seva Dal, Rahul Gandhi says every section of society, be it farmers, youth or small-scale traders, suffered under the Modi government and they should get justice. When the Congress returned to power in Rajasthan, the state government waived farm loans, Gandhi said. The prime minister made an empty promise of loan waiver to farmers, but wrote off bank dues of his industrialist-friends, he charged.

Rahul Gandhi is currently addressing a rally in Ajmer and has begun his speech with another attack on PM Narendra Modi. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes empty promises to farmers, but waives loans of industrialist-friends,” he says.

Rahul in 'Lucky' Village | Congress chief Rahul Gandhi will launch the campaign from the same tribal Lal Dungri village in Gujarat's Dharampur where his grandmother Indira Gandhi in 1980, his father Rajiv Gandhi in 1984 and his mother Sonia Gandhi in 2004 started and romped home to power.

Rahul Gandhi will kick off his party's Lok Sabha poll campaign in Gujarat today, addressing a public rally in Valsad district. Gandhi will address the 'Jan Akrosh Rally' at Laldungri village in Valsad in his first visit to the state after the 2017 Assembly polls in which he had campaigned vigorously, travelling across the length and breadth of the state. Rahul Gandhi will also address the All India Congress Seva Dal Maha Adhiveshan in Rajasthan's Ajmer today. The two-day 'adhiveshan' is being organised after 30 years.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be campaigning in Uttarakhand where he will likely keep up the attack on the proposed anti-BJP Mahagathbandhan as an “alliance of the corrupt”. The run-up to the Lok Sabha elections was spiced up by Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee’s hint of a larger opposition alliance yesterday. 

Priyanka Gandhi will today address her first press conference since joining politics as the Congress’ general secretary. Priyanka, who has been pulling all-nighters at the party office in Lucknow, is likely to weigh in on the CAG report on Rafale fighter jets deal as well as the Enforcement Directorate’s questioning of her husband Robert Vadra. Her brother and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, meanwhile, will be hitting the campaign trail in Rajasthan and Gujarat, where, armed with the CAG report, he is likely to up the ante on the Narendra Modi government over lack of guarantees in the new deal.