Elections

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.

With the announcement of the Delhi civic polls, the Model Code of Conduct has come into force in the national capital. "The notification for the civic body poll will be issued on November 7. The last day for filing the nomination is November 14 and the scrutiny of the nomination will be held on November 16. The last date for withdrawal of candidature is November 19," Delhi State Election Commisioner Vijay Dev said.

This was revealed by an exclusive CVoter-ABP Gujarat Opinion Poll to gauge popular perceptions and voting intent of adult citizens in the state with a sample size of 22,807 spread across all the 182 Assembly constituencies in Gujarat using random sampling techniques. As per the poll, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has emerged as a formidable force in the state and is projected to gather a vote share of more than 20 per cent in the forthcoming elections.

Bharti, who has also been the only woman chief minister of Madhya Pradesh so far, said she would launch a two-month-long march as a symbolic protest against the liquor policy of her own party's government. The march will commence on November 7 and conclude on January 12, 2023, during which she would move around Madhya Pradesh and stay out of home or any building.

Although it is one of those electoral reforms which had also been proposed in the past, but, the sources said that the proposal gained momentum after Rajiv Kumar was appointed as the Chief Election Commissioner. Sources said that the proposal was sent to the Ministry, and the government is in discussion with the Commission regarding the proposed electoral reforms. Meeting in this regard is likely soon, said sources.

Addressing a public meeting in north Kashmir's Baramulla town, Azad said, "To restore Article 370 would need around 350 votes in the Lok Sabha and 175 votes in the Rajya Sabha. This is a number no political party has or is likely to ever get. The Congress has shrunken to less than 50 seats and if they speak of restoring Article 370, they are making false promises." He said his political agenda includes restoration of statehood, land and jobs for the locals as these are achievable objectives.

"Nitish Kumar is concerned over the unity of opposition leaders but not about the farmers who are battling drought. The unity among opposition leaders is not possible in the country. The CM thinks that he is going for the 'Vipakshi' (Opposition) unity but in reality he is striving for 'Pakshi' (Birds) unity which is too far-fetched. As all the birds are different from each other, they cannot be united.

The CEO was trying to clear the air on the controversy created by his earlier statement in which he had told the media that 25 lakh new voters would become eligible for the forthcoming assembly elections in J&K. Sources told IANS that during the meeting, which held on Monday, the CEO said that the figure of 25 lakh new voters had no sanctity as the actual number would be known only after the revision of the electoral rolls.

The challenges for him are huge, in the sense that he has never been a mass leader. For most of his 50-plus years in the Congress, he has worked at best as an organisational man, winning elections only three times - twice to the Lok Sabha (from Washim in Maharashtra), and once as MLA in the erstwhile J&K Assembly (Bhaderwah).

The BJP is also working on to wrest away the stronghold of India's main opposition party's national President Sonia Gandhi and Uttar Pradesh's main opposition party Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav. Sonia Gandhi has been invincible in her bastion Rae Bareli, and despite staying away from active politics, a large section of voters in Uttar Pradesh still vote for Akhilesh Yadav in the name of Mulayam Singh.