Assembly Elections 2021 Live Updates:
Polls are to be held for 294 seats in West Bengal, 234 seats in Tamil Nadu, 140 seats in Kerala, 126 seats in Assam and 30 seats in Puducherry.Assembly Elections 2021 Live Updates: The BJP Saturday released its first list of 57 candidates for the West Bengal Assembly elections later this month. The saffron party has pitted ex-TMC leader Suvendu Adhikari against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram.
Activist Akhil Gogoi, who is in jail since December 2019, will contest the upcoming elections in Assam as a candidate of his newly-floated political party Raijor Dal. Gogoi, who was booked under the stringent UAPA during the protests against the CAA in December 2019, will contest from Sibsagar, PTI reported.
Ahead of the Tamil Nadu Assembly polls, the ruling AIADMK allotted 20 seats as well as the Kanyakumari Lok Sabha seat to its ally BJP after several rounds of negotiations. In a statement, signed by AIADMK leaders O Panneerselvam and K Palaniswami, the party pledged full support to the candidates of the BJP in the polls.
Following a complaint by the Trinamool Congress earlier this week, the Election Commission has directed the Union Government to stop using images of PM Narendra Modi on Covid-19 vaccination certificates in poll-bound states.
Sources said the EC wrote to the Health Ministry on Friday reiterating its standing instructions against promoting the party in power through government means when the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) was in force.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee
With the BJP on Saturday announcing Suvendu Adhikari's candidature from the Nandigram seat, the stage is set for the Battle Royale between him and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the most high-profile constituency in the upcoming West Bengal assembly elections.
Nandigram -- the cradle of the anti-land acquisition movement that catapulted Banerjee to power in 2011, will witness her once protg Suvendu Adhikari taking on her on April 1, in the second of the eight phases of polling.
The 66-year-old TMC supremo, while announcing the party's candidate list on Friday, reaffirmed her name from Nandigram.
She had declared in January that she will contest the seat in Purba Medinipur district. (PTI)
At a time when the Congress is locked in a bitter tussle with the DMK over seat sharing in Tamil Nadu, trouble is brewing in the party in Assam as well over allocation of seats to partner AIUDF.
There were tense scenes and slogan shouting by a section of the party workers at the Congress office Saturday in Guwahati in the presence of party chief Ripun Bora and Mahila Congress national president Sushmita Dev. Sources said Dev is upset over allocation of some seats to the AIUDF in her stronghold of Barak Valley.
Of the 15 Assembly seats in Barak Valley, comprising Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi districts , the Congress had won three last time, while the AIUDF had won four. All the three seats in Hailakandi were won by AIUDF last time and the party is claiming all three as part of the seat-sharing deal.
Sources said the Congress leadership has agreed to allocate all the three seats to the AIUDF. This has angered the Congress workers in the district. Read this report by Manoj C G
The BJP Saturday released its first list of 57 candidates for the West Bengal Assembly elections later this month. The saffron party has pitted ex-TMC leader Suvendu Adhikari against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram.
Former Indian cricketer Ashoke Dinda, ex-IPS officer Bharati Ghosh among BJP candidates for West Bengal polls.
Senior BJP leader and Home Minister Amit Shah will be on a day-long political tour of the poll-bound states of Tamil Nadu, where he is set to launch a door-to-door campaign, and Kerala on Sunday.
A party statement said Shah will also address the valedictory function of the BJP's "Kerala Vijay Yatra" in Thiruvananthapuram, besides attending several programmes in the two southern states.
Besides launching "Vetri Kodi Eandhi" (people outreach programme for poll victory) at Suchindram in Kanyakumari, Shah will also hold a roadshow in the constituency where the BJP is also contesting the Lok Sabha bypoll due to the death of the sitting Congress MP. Former union minister Pon Radhakrishnan is its candidate. (PTI)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will sharpen BJP's campaign for the high-octane assembly elections in West Bengal with a mega rally at the Brigade Parade Grounds here on Sunday.
The Prime Minister's Sunday rally is said to be culmination of the "Parivartan Yatra" launched by the saffron party in the poll-bound Bengal in February this year. Along with Modi several top senior BJP leaders will be present at the rally.
According to BJP sources, the rally might also throw up surprises as a few noted personalities including Bollywood actor Mithun Chakraborty might be present on the dais. "He may be present at the rally tomorrow. Let's see what happens," a senior BJP leader said.
BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, however, said nothing has been discussed regarding Chakraborty's joining the saffron camp. (PTI)
Activist Akhil Gogoi, who is in jail since December 2019, will contest the upcoming elections in Assam as a candidate of his newly-floated political party Raijor Dal. Gogoi, who was booked under the stringent UAPA during the protests against the CAA in December 2019, will contest from Sibsagar, PTI reported.
Announcing the list of 17 candidates that the party fielded in the first two phases, Raijor Dal working president Bhasco De Saikia said that Gogoi, the party's president, will contest from the Sibsagar constituency in Upper Assam.
In the first phase, the party will contest in 12 seats but is yet to announce the candidate for one seat, and in the second phase, it has put up candidates in six constituencies.
"We have decided to contest in only 17 seats with th intention of not dividing the votes so that the BJP is defeated and to ensure that there is an anti-CAA government in the state," Saikia said. (PTI)
The Congress on Saturday said that its women's wing chief Sushmita Dev was with the party, dismissing reports in a section of the press that she has resigned amid differences over seat-sharing.
The reports of Dev's resignation came amid differences with party leaders over seat-sharing with AIUDF.
"It has been brought to the notice of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee that a speculative news about resignation of President, All India Mahila Congress Ms Sushmita Dev is doing the rounds on television and web portals. We want to make it clear that Ms Sushmita Dev has not resigned from the party," party spokesperson Bobbeeta Sharma said in a statement.
Earlier, Dev barged out of a Congress meeting on the selection of candidates at a city hotel, party sources said.
Her supporters also demonstrated against Congress leaders who favoured allotting more seats to AIUDF in the Barak Valley. (PTI)
In poll-bound Assam, the campaigns of both the BJP and Congress could not be more different. Yet, one place figures prominently in the campaign trails of both parties — the Bartadrava Than/Sattra (monastery) in Nagaon, which is the birthplace of renowned Vaishnavite saint-reformer Srimanta Sankardeva.
Last month, Home Minister Amit Shah launched a beautification project there, earmarking Rs 188 crore for its development. Just a few weeks before that, the Congress launched a bus yatra — as part of their Assam Basaon Ahok (Come Let’s Save Assam) campaign — from the same place. That is not all.
It is common to see politicians often going to different Sattras to seek blessings or extolling the virtues of Sankardeva, especially in the run-up to elections. In fact, part of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi’s Assam itinerary last week included a visit to Letekupukhuri Than in Lakhimpur, the birthplace of Srimanta Madhavdev, the most trusted disciple of Sankardeva. Read this report by Tora Agarwala
Upset over not being nominated this time, TMC's Shibpur MLA Jatu Lahiri announced on Saturday that he has resigned from the party.
Talking to reporters, Lahiri said that despite being a "loyal soldier" of the TMC he was ignored by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
"More than not getting the nomination, I am hurt that an outsider having no links with the electorate has got the nomination just days after being inducted into the party. It seems we are not required by the TMC anymore. I am leaving the organisation," he said.
TMC has nominated former cricketer Manoj Tiwary from the Shibpur seat in Howrah.
Lahiri, a veteran politician, also hinted that he may join the BJP. (PTI)
On the eastern fringes of Kochi, in the village of Kizhakkambalam, the parking field of a sprawling supermarket was jam-packed with cars, two-wheelers and auto-rickshaws. A line of people, mostly women, flitted out of the supermarket every few minutes, carrying large bags laden with groceries, fruits and vegetables.
This is no ordinary supermarket. Here, a 10-kilogram pack of brown matta rice costs just Rs 84, down from over Rs 450 in the open market. Half-a-litre of milk costs Rs 5, 250 grams of tea Rs 14 and a pack of six eggs comes to Rs 9. When prices of essential food items are so heavily subsidised with discounts ranging from 30% to 70%, who wouldn’t line up to buy?
The bhakshya-suraksha supermarket in Kizhakkambalam, started in 2017, has been one of the flagship initiatives of Twenty20, the charitable arm of garment exporter KITEX Group which has its headquarters in the village. In 2015, after running into a tussle with local politicians, Twenty20 decided to test the electoral waters. It contested in the local body elections that year, winning 17 of the 19 wards. Kizhakkambalam made headlines; it was the first time in India’s history that a corporate firm-backed party captured power of a local body.
Read this report by Vishnu Varma
Trinamool Congress and Left candidates kick-started their campaigns for the West Bengal elections on Saturday.
While the TMC announced the list of candidates for 291 seats on Friday, the Left named nominees for 39 seats that are going to polls in the first phase.
TMC's Ashokenagar candidate Dhiman Roy began door-to-door campaigning in the morning. The party's Jadavpur candidate Debabrata Majumdar also visited the voters in the area.
CPI(M)'s Jhargram nominee Madhuja Sen Roy also campaigned in her constituency.
In Behala, TMC supporters were seen busy painting wall graffitis in the support of the party's two candidates from the area -- Partha Chatterjee (Behala West) and Ratha Chatterjee (Behala East). (PTI)
West Bengal BJP releases the election campaign song 'Gorbo Sonar Bangla'.
Denying reports of senior Congress leader Sushmita Dev's resignation from the party, Assam Congress MP Pradyut Bordoloi said: 'She is very much with us. She is a very indispensable part of Congress. She is a very respected leader of our party.' (ANI)
Former TMC MP Dinesh Trivedi, who resigned from the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress last month, joined the BJP in the presence of the saffron party's president JP Nadda.
To make new women voters aware of how to take part in the voting process, the Cachar district administration in south Assam is taking various steps to attract all electors, especially young voters, to cast their ballot in the upcoming Assembly hustings. Under this effort, a mock polling centre 'Poll Express' has been put into motion, said a district administration release on Friday.
Cachar Deputy Commissioner Keerthi Jalli, DIG Southern range Devajyoti Mukherjee and Superintendent of Police Bhanwar Lal Mina inaugurated the 'Poll Express' which will mainly travel to the border areas and rural areas of the district.
Demos of the voting process will be shown to the general public through the vehicle with new voters encouraged to cast their votes under the SVEEP initiative in Cachar district. (PTI)
Discontent is brewing in the Trinamool Congress (TMC) after it dropped 27 MLAs, including ministers Amit Mitra, Purnendu Basu and Rabindranath Bhattacharya, from the list and introduced 114 new faces.
After Chief Minister and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee released the list of 291 candidates, many leaders criticised the party for sidelining them, and protests broke out at various places.
Sensing rebellion, Banerjee at a press conference on Friday said the leaders who were dropped because of age or other reasons would be accommodated in the proposed Legislative Council or given organisational work.
Some of the veteran TMC leaders who could not find their names in the list included finance minister Mitra; ministers Basu and Bhattacharya; former deputy Assembly speaker Sonali Guha; and veteran MLAs Braja Majumder, Jatu Lahiri and Manish Gupta.
Bhattacharya’s Singur seat, closely associated with the TMC’s rise to power, has gone to state minister Becharam Manna. Read our report here.
The ruling AIADMK has allotted 20 Assembly constituencies and the Kanyakumari Lok Sabha seat to its ally BJP for the April 6 Assembly elections, after several rounds of negotiations.
Following up with the release of its first list of six candidates for the polls on Friday, the AIADMK firmed up the electoral agreement with the Saffron party late Friday night. An AIADMK release pledged its full support to the candidates of the BJP in the polls and the pact was signed by O Panneerselvam and K Palaniswami from the ruling party side and the saffron party's national general secretary, C T Ravi and state unit chief L Murugan.
Days ago, the AIADMK concluded seat-sharing with the Pattali Makkal Katchi and allotted it 23 seats. Out of the 234 assembly seats, the AIADMK is keen to contest from at least 170 seats including 134 it won during the 2016 polls, sources said. The negotiations on seat-sharing, initated in a meeting between BJP top leader Amit Shah and AIADMK's Palaniswami and Panneerselvam here was taken forward by Ravi, and poll in charge for Tamil Nadu, G Kishan Reddy with the leadership of the state's ruling party. (PTI)
The reason behind expelled AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala’s decision to withdraw from politics is a mystery. However, her move has left her nephew T T V Dhinakaran and his party, the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK), in a spot of bother ahead of the upcoming Assembly polls in Tamil Nadu.
In 2018, Dhinakaran had launched the AMMK as a result of Sasikala’s ouster in order to recapture the AIADMK from its current leadership, and Sasikala, after her recent release from prison, had no second thoughts in declaring her decision to campaign for the polls.
However, ever since Sasikala announced on Wednesday her decision to withdraw from politics, Dhinakaran hasn’t done much political work, sources close to the AMMK leader said.
“He was neither talking to other parties nor to senior faces in his own camp,” said a source. “It is a fact that AMMK received over 1,300 applications from people to contest in the upcoming elections. But all of them made those applications before Sasikala made her announcement to withdraw from politics. And Dhinakaran himself seems to have no plans right now. If he has to go ahead on his own, it is going to be a lone battle as there are no alliance parties left for him.” Read the report here.