Curated By: Asmita Ravi Shankar
News18.com
Last Updated: March 29, 2024, 23:44 IST
New Delhi, India
2024 General Elections Updates: The Congress and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) announced their seat sharing formula for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections at a joint press conference on Friday. After a series of meetings between the top brass of both the parties, the tussle between the two has come to an end. RJD bagged the biggest share with 26 seats, while Congress got nine seats and the left parties will contest on five seats.
In Maharashtra however, the seat sharing talks are at a standstill in both the ruling Mahayuti and opposition Maha Vikas Agadhi (MVA). Sources said that the MVA is confident of finalising the seat-sharing formula by this weekend.
Meanwhile, the Veerashaiva Lingayat seers on Thursday in Karnataka’s Hubballi have demanded the replacement of union minister Pralhad Joshi as a BJP candidate from the Dharwad constituency. They have given the saffron camp a deadline of March 31 to arrive at a decision, failing which they will field their own candidate.
In Punjab, days after the BJP announced that it would contest all the seats in the state by itself, the Shiromani Akali Dal on Thursday named five candidates for the Lok Sabha polls in Punjab. It also named two candidates for Haryana.
BJP governments will be formed at the Centre and in Himachal Pradesh after the declaration of results of the Lok Sabha and assembly byelections, and Narendra Modi will become the prime minister again, former chief minister Jai Ram Thakur said on Friday. Addressing the ‘Tridev Sammelan’ at Thunag in his Seraj constituency, Thakur said that it will be for the first time that an elected government will be ousted within 18 months due to the style of functioning of Chief Minister Sukhvinder Sukhu and all efforts to save the government will fail, a statement issued here said.
NCP MLA Nilesh Lanke on Friday said he was quitting the Maharashtra Assembly to contest from the Ahmednagar Lok Sabha seat on a Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) ticket. Lanke, legislator from Parner there, was earlier with Ajit Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party but had recently met opposition stalwart Sharad Pawar.
Lanke is likely to get a ticket from the Sharad Pawar faction to contest against Ahmednagar’s sitting BJP MP Sujay Vikhe Patil.”Today, I am announcing my decision to quit as MLA. I apologise to you all. I am resigning because I don’t want someone to question us tomorrow. I don’t want someone to drag us to court,” he told a gathering of party workers while showing them his resignation letter addressed to the assembly speaker.
There are more than 8,900 voters aged above 100 years, 13 of which are above 120 years, in 12 constituencies which will go to polls in the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections 2024 in Rajasthan, an official said. The state’s election department has published integrated voter lists for these seats.
According to the final voters’ list published by the state Chief Electoral Office, a total of 8,679 voters are aged between 100 to 109 years, 239 are aged between 110-119, and 13 voters are aged above 120 years.
Union Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan on Friday said he has “received LS election nomination amount” from a group of students, who were among those evacuated from Ukraine by the central government in the wake of the conflict. He said this in a post on X.
The MoS, in his post, also shared a video showing a montage of visuals, including that of a group of evacuated students arriving at an airport lounge and being welcomed with flowers by the minister.
The Congress on Friday announced three more candidates, including Sandur MLA E Thukaram for the Ballari Lok Sabha constituency. The party has named Sunil Bose, Karnataka Social Welfare Minister H C Mahadevappa’s son, as its Chamarajanagar LS candidate.
“Bose has been in politics for the past 20 years and hence is eligible to get a Congress ticket,” a close confidant of Mahadevappa told PTI. The party announced that it would be fielding All India Youth Congress General Secretary Raksha Ramaiah as its Chikkaballapura candidate, a Congress office-bearer said.
The BJP is likely to release its second candidate list for the simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly elections in Odisha within the next two days, senior party leader Vijay Pal Singh Tomar said on Friday. “It will come. Wait for two days,” the BJP election in-charge for the state told reporters when asked about the second list of candidates.
The saffron party has already announced the names of candidates for 18 of the 21 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The party is yet to name its nominees for the Cuttack, Kandhamal and Jajpur Lok Sabha seats. The party has also not announced its candidates for the 147 assembly seats.
The CPI(M)-led Left Front on Friday announced candidates for two more Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal, expressing hope that the talks with the Congress and ISF over sharing of seats would conclude in a few days. Addressing a press conference, Left Front Chairman Biman Bose named CPI(M)’s Biplab Moitra for the Arambagh constituency and Sonamani Murmu Tudu for Jhargram.
He said the final list of the Left Front would be out in a few days after the talks conclude. With this, the Left Front has announced candidates for 22 seats, while the Congress has named nominees for nine seats in the state. In the Coochbehar seat, which is going to the polls in the first phase on April 19, the Congress and Left Front constituent Forward Bloc have fielded candidates, complicating the discussions.
The Congress on Friday fielded Rajasthan Assembly Speaker C P Joshi from the Bhilwara parliamentary constituency replacing its candidate Damodar Gurjar. The party declared its ninth list of three candidates and two replacements for the Lok Sabha polls.
Gurjar has now been fielded from the Rajsamand seat from where Sudarshan Rawat was earlier named. Rawat had written to the party’s state president citing his inability to contest the election. The Congress has so far declared candidates for 22 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the state.
It has left two seats — Sikar and Nagaur — for the CPI (M) and RLP as part of the INDI alliance.
Kerala police on Friday arrested a man who allegedly spread false propaganda on social media that a lockdown would be declared in the country for three weeks to tamper with electronic voting machines (EVMs). The State Police Media Cell in a statement said that the arrested man — M V Sharafuddin — hails from Malappuram district of the state.
The man had allegedly shared on social media a screenshot of a news story published during the COVID-19 lockdown as part of his propaganda, police said. This was discovered during a social media patrol conducted by Kochi Cyberdome branch of Kerala police, the statement said.
YSRCP chief and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday said he is ready to stand by the poor to defeat capitalists in the forthcoming elections, which he dubbed as a ‘Kurukshetra battle’.
Addressing a public meeting at Yemmiganuru in Kurnool district as part of ‘Memanta Siddham’ (We are all ready) election campaign bus tour, the YSRCP chief claimed his government had changed the face of the education sector in the past 58 months.
“Youth were suffering without jobs even after graduation since the courses were not up to the mark, so we have brought radical changes in the education sector to get them jobs and unique opportunities to live anywhere in the world,” he added.
According to the CM, opposition parties felt that children below the voting age could be ignored and said the YSRCP government devised a plan to nurture them with quality education to eventually wean them out of poverty.
The ruling Trinamool Congress on Friday nominated actor-turned-politician Sayantika Banerjee for the June 1 bypoll to Baranagar assembly seat in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal.
The party also named Reyat Hossain Sarkar for the May 7 by-election to Bhagabangola assembly seat in Murshidabad district. Banerjee, who joined the TMC before the 2021 assembly elections in West Bengal, was fielded from Bankura constituency but lost.
The grand old party has released the list of 27-star campaigners for Jammu and Kashmir for the Lok Sabha Election 2024. The list includes the names of Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Mallikarjun Kharge, VC Venugopal, and Sachin Pilot.
Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Friday predicted a direct fight between the Congress and the BJP on nine Lok Sabha seats in the state and dubbed the JJP and the INLD as “vote katu” parties. He claimed that the electorate will reject the “vote katu” (vote-cutter) parties, the JJP and the INLD, in the parliamentary elections.
While the Congress is contesting on nine seats, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), a part of opposition’s INDIA bloc, is fighting the Kurukshetra Lok Sabha seat. The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) have also said they will contest on all seats.
BJP state chief K Surendran, who is also the NDA candidate pitted against Congress MP Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, has 242 criminal cases against him. As part of the statutory requirements, Surendran had recently published the details of his cases in the party mouthpiece which ran for three full pages.
Similarly, the saffron party’s Ernakulam constituency candidate K S Radhakrishnan has around 211 cases against him. “Most of the cases are related to Sabarimala protests which were held in 2018. Most of the cases are in court. When party leaders call for a strike or a protest, the police register a case in connection with that,” George Kurian, the state general secretary of the BJP told PTI.
The Congress is likely to release its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections on April 5 in the presence of top leaders, including party chief Mallikarjun Kharge and former party presidents Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, sources said on Friday.
They also said that Kharge and the Gandhis are likely to address public rallies in Jaipur and Hyderabad on April 6 where they will also highlight the key elements of the Congress manifesto.
According to the PTI sources, the party leadership would launch the poll manifesto on April 5 at the All India Congress Committee headquarters. The Congress’ manifesto will lay emphasis on ‘Paanch Nyay’ or five pillars of justice, including ‘Yuva Nyay’, ‘Naari Nyay’, ‘Kisaan Nyay’, ‘Shramik Nyay’ and ‘Hissedari Nyay’ as well as the guarantees made by it to the people as part of its poll promises for 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Veteran tribal leader Chhotu Vasava on Friday joined Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP) and announced the outfit will field candidates on all tribal-dominated Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat, where polling will be held in one phase on May 7. Vasava (78) had formed the now-defunct Bharatiya Tribal Party in 2017 after leaving JD(U). Days earlier, his elder son and BTP president Mahesh Vasava joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Addressing a press conference in Jhagadia in Bharuch district, Vasava said the seats the BAP will contest will be known in the coming days.”Under the banner of BAP, we will fight for the rights of the tribals. It is certain we will field candidates from tribal-dominated seats.
The state BJP on Friday launched the party’s campaign song, ‘Modi Sang Bihar’, for the Lok Sabha polls. The song, which translates to Bihar with Modi, highlights the developmental works undertaken by the BJP-led government.
It also talks about the “guarantees” given by PM Modi to the people of the state, party leaders said. The song was released by senior BJP leader Vinod Tawde. Among those present at the function were Deputy CMs Samrat Chaudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha.
Tawde also inaugurated the party’s media center in Patna. “With the release of this song, we have formally launched our campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in Bihar,” he said.
The Samajwadi Party’s Rampur candidate for the Lok Sabha polls, Maulana Mohibbullah Nadvi, on Friday said he is hopeful of getting the support of the party’s veteran leader Azam Khan in the elections and exuded confidence that setting aside small differences, all party leaders will back him.
The candidature of Nadvi, who is the imam of the mosque adjacent to the Parliament House complex, had run into confusion after Khan’s close aide Asim Raja also filed his nomination calling himself a Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate.
Senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan on Friday said the Maha Vikas Aghadi’s doors are still open for the Prakash Ambedkar-led Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) as division of opposition votes need to be avoided.
Talking to reporters here, Chavan said the VBA had contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls on its own, resulting in the defeat of eight to nine Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidates.
His remarks come two days after Ambedkar announced the names of VBA’s candidates from eight Lok Sabha constituencies in the state, signalling that the outfit was no longer pursuing an alliance with the MVA comprising the Shiv Sena (UBT), NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) and Congress.
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