Election Commission

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing a petitioner, raised the issue in connection with the appointment of Goel. He said Goel was a sitting Secretary, was given voluntary retirement on Friday, the appointment was issued on Saturday, and on Monday, he started working as EC.

Arun Goel will join Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey in the apex poll body. The third post of Election Commissioner in the country's top poll body has been vacant for nearly six months. After Chief EC Sushil Chandra had retired in May this year giving charge to Rajiv Kumar, the poll panel has been a two-member body only. However, after Goel assumes the charge, the top poll body will have three members - one Chief Election Commissioner and two Election Commissioners.

Taking to Twitter on Friday night, Abhishek Singhsaid: "I accept the Hon'ble ECI's decision with all humilit . Though I believe there's nothing wrong in this post. A public servant, in a car bought by public's money, reporting for public duty, with public officials, communicating it to the public. It is neither publicity nor a stunt!"

Maken has been named in the list of 40 star campaigners released on Thursday. But three Ashok Gehlot loyalists -- state ministers Mahesh Joshi, Shanti Dhariwal and RTDC chairman Dharmendra Rathore -- do not feature in the list. Meanwhile, Gehlot and former deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot are also among the 40 names.

Azam Khan's name has now been removed from the electoral roll in Rampur, weeks after he was convicted in a 2019 hate speech case. The decision means that the senior SP leader will not be able to vote in the December 5 by-election in his traditional seat of Rampur. The decision to remove his name from the list was taken by the Rampur Electoral Registration Officer (ERO) on a complaint by BJP's poll candidate Akash Saxena, who cited various provisions of law to seek the deletion of his name.

Releasing the manifesto, Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta said, "With a promise to allot houses to slum dwellers, we have come up with this Vachan Patra which has details of the allottees."

Prior to the amendment, only an additional period of 30 days was allowed to be specified by the Centre in the year of general elections. Now under the Electoral Bond Amendment Scheme 2022, which came into being after the issuance of the gazette notification, an additional period of 15 days will be allowed in those years that have state elections also.

As per the Commission's schedule, the by-polls will be held on December 5 and the results will be declared on December 8. The Assembly seats are Padampur (Odisha), Sardarshahar (Rajasthan), Kurhani (Bihar), Bhanupratappur (Chhattisgarh) and Rampur (Uttar Pradesh). The Parliamentary seat is Mainpuri (Uttar Pradesh). According to the poll panel, the last date of nominations for these byelections is November 17.

According to the schedule, voting for 182 member Gujarat assembly will take place in two phases on December 1 and December 5, 2022. The results will be announced on December 8, 2022. In the first phase,i.e. December 1, 89 seats will go to polls. On December 5, polls for the remaining 93 seats will be held. According to the EC, over 4.9 crore total electors will cast their vote, on over 51,000 polling stations.

The Congress screening committee has released the first list of 43 candidates for the Gujarat Assembly elections, with Rajya Sabha member Amee Yajnik fielded from Ghatlodia seat in Ahmedabad city, where she will be challenging Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel.