Lok Sabha election 2024 updates | Election Commission to announce poll dates on March 16

Former Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Friday said party leader Jagadish Shettar will contest the Lok Sabha election from Belagavi.

“Jagadish Shettar met me yesterday. He was not willing to contest from Belgaum (Belagavi) Lok Sabha constituency. I convinced him to contest from there. He has happily agreed to it,” Yediyurappa, a member of the BJP Parliamentary Board, told reporters here.

The BJP is yet to officially announce his candidature for the seat.

-PTI

With political programmes in three states on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off the BJP’s determined southern push for the Lok Sabha election, a day before its announcement, as his party seeks to boost its seat tally from the region’s five states.

Modi is scheduled to travel through all the southern states, focusing on places where the ruling party is hopeful of gains, for the next four days till March 19, BJP leaders said.

He will address a joint TDP-BJP-Jana Sena rally in Andhra Pradesh on March 17, a show of strength from the three parties that joined hands recently to take on the state’s ruling YSR Congress Party.

BJP leaders said the prime minister will campaign in Nagarkurnool in Telangana and Gulbarga in Karnataka on Saturday.

-PTI

Launching a blistering attack on the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday called the Dravidian party an ‘enemy’ of the state’s future and charged it with harbouring hatred towards the country, its culture and heritage.

He lashed out at the opposition INDIA bloc and said all it had to show was “scams” running to several crores of rupees, and said his party-led NDA had public initiatives as achievements to boast of.

“The history of the DMK and Congress is loot. They want to come to power to loot the people. On one side is the BJP’s welfare schemes, on the other (in the INDIA bloc) is the scams of crores of rupees. We gave optical fibre, 5G and other digital initiatives. INDI alliance has 2G scam,” he said.

-PTI

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the BJP will win seats from Kerala in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and said the people of the state were suffering from the corrupt and incompetent government.

Addressing the public campaign here for candidates of the BJP-led NDA, he said, “Lotus is going to bloom in Kerala this time.” Attacking the Left and the Congress in Kerala, Modi said the people of the state have endured hardship under governments plagued by corruption and incompetence.

“In the last elections, the people of Kerala made us the double-digit vote percentage party. And now, our destiny of double-digit seats here is not so far,” Modi said.

-PTI

The Election Commission of India (ECI) should play its role in restoring democracy in Jammu and Kashmir and announce dates for both Parliament as well as assembly polls in the Union Territory, National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah said here on Friday.

“We have no expectations from the Election Commission. The EC should play its role as part of its mission of maintaining democracy. It has been 10 years that J-K has not seen an assembly election,” Abdullah told reporters here.

“The former president has submitted a report on ‘one nation, one election’. What can we hope for from them: drum-beating ‘one nation one election’ if you do not start from J-K. Is it to fool the people? “There have to be elections in J-K and it is a golden opportunity. Let them restore democracy fully here and announce the dates of both Parliament as well as assembly elections,” he added.

-PTI

Congress MP Abdul Khaleque, who has been denied a ticket in Assam for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, resigned from the party on Friday.

The Barpeta MP sent a letter, resigning from the primary membership of the party, to its national president Mallikarjun Kharge.

In the resignation letter, the MP claimed that the party has taken a “strange route” in the state, where “people-centric issues have taken a back seat”.

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) has filed a complaint with the Election Commission, objecting to the BJP-led Centre’s advertisements boasting about funding allocation to the West Bengal government for different central schemes, which have been a focal point of the BJP’s campaign efforts.

In a letter to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of West Bengal on Thursday, the TMC pointed out that the central government had inserted advertisements in some papers at the cost of public exchequer saying how much money had been given to the state and also cited certain points pertaining to central schemes like PMAY, MGNREGA and some others.

The letter also pointed out to a campaign launched by the TMC which highlighted non-release of funds by the Centre under various central schemes and thus depriving West Bengal of its rightful dues only because it does not have a BJP-ruled government in the state.

-PTI

Punjab’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sibin C on Friday released information regarding the total polling stations and voters across the 13 Lok Sabha seats of Punjab and stated that as of March 1, 2024, Punjab has a total of 2,12,71,246 voters, including 1,19,29,959 male voters, 1,07,75,543 female voters and 744 transgender voters.

Divulging the details, for the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat, there are 1895 polling stations and a total of 15,95,300 voters, including 8,44,299 male voters, 7,50,965 female voters, and 36 transgender voters.

Similarly, for the Amritsar seat, there are 1676 polling stations and a total of 15,93,846 voters, including 8,36,966 male voters, 7,56,820 female voters, and 60 transgender voters, the Punjab Information and Public Relations Department stated.

-ANI

Prime Minister Narendra Modi would formally kickstart the BJP’s Lok Sabha election campaign in Karnataka on Saturday from Congress President M Mallikarjun Kharge’s home turf -- Kalaburagi.

He is scheduled to address a mega public meeting at the district headquarters town’s N V Ground at 2 pm.

Kharge, who had represented Kalaburagi (Gulbarga Lok Sabha segment) twice in the past, lost to BJP’s Umesh Jadhav by a margin of 95,452 votes in the 2019 general elections here -- the octogenarian leader’s first electoral loss in his political life spanning several decades.

BJP has once again fielded Jadhav from the segment.

-PTI

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the NDA election meeting at Chilakaluripeta in Palnadu district on Sunday, BJP national general secretary Vinod Tawde said. 

The BJP leader lashed out at the ruling party, YSRCP, in the state for allegedly rebranding Central Government-funded schemes with Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s name and extending them to the masses. He termed it as cheating.

-PTI

Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who has been renominated for the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha, began his poll campaign and asked BJP workers to tell voters that this election is about Bharat and not their party.

Mr. Shah appealed to his party cadres to contact each and every voter during the poll campaign and ensure that they press the “lotus button (on EVM)”.

“Tell people that this election is not about Bharatiya Janata Party, but for Bharat,” he said, stressing that no voter should be left without being “contacted”.

-PTI

The United Opposition Forum Assam (UOFA) announced Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) president Lurinjyoti Gogoi as the candidate for the Dibrugarh Lok Sabha seat, from where Union minister Sarbananda Sonowal is contesting as BJP nominee.

Gogoi, a former general secretary of the All Assam Students Union (AASU), will be the consensus candidate of the 16-party UOFA in Dibrugarh, AJP general secretary Jagadish Bhuyan told a press conference. 

-PTI

The BSP will contest the Hyderabad and Nagarkurnool Lok Sabha seats, out of the total 17 constituencies in Telangana, as part of its alliance with the K. Chandrasekhar Rao-led BRS.

The BRS and BSP on March 5 announced a pre-poll alliance in Telangana for the LS polls following talks between KCR and state BSP president R.S. Praveen Kumar.

-PTI

The Election Commission of India has notified that the polling dates for the 2024 General Elections and State Assembly elections will be announced at 3pm on Saturday, March 16.

“Every method has its plus and minus points,” the Supreme Court said as it refused to entertain a plea alleging irregularities in the functioning of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).

A bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna, Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih said the court has already examined several petitions time and again and dealt with various issues related to the functioning of EVMs.

-PTI

Union Home Minister Amit Shah has begun campaigning from the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat after offering prayers to Lord Hanuman in Ahmedabad.

He also offered floral tributes to the statue of Subhash Chandra Bose. In his address, Mr. Shah urged BJP cadres to contact every voter in the constituency and ensure that they come to the booth to vote for the BJP.

In 2019, the Home Minister won from the Gandhinagar constituency by defeating Congress candidate C.J. Chavda by over 5 lakh votes.

-PTI

Amid talks of an electoral understanding with the Congress, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front on Thursday had announced candidates for 16 of the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal.

“We are not ruling out an alliance with the Congress. If the Congress wants seat adjustments, we are not going to say no,” Left Front Chairperson Biman Basu told journalists. Mr. Basu said that since the Left Front had announced candidates for only 16 seats, there is still scope for an electoral alliance with the Congress on the remaining seats.

Read the full story here.

The Congress on Friday alleged that the electoral bonds data has exposed “corrupt tactics” of the BJP such as quid pro quo, seeking donations for the company’s protection, kickbacks and money laundering through shell companies.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh also said the party continues to demand unique bond ID numbers, so that it can precisely match donors to recipients.

-PTI

​

On March 14, the high-level committee headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind recommended simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies as the first step and hold municipal and panchayat polls within 100 days of the general election in the next phase.

The committee submitted its report, running into more than 18,000 pages, to President Droupadi Murmu. 

Read the full story here.

The Congress on March 12 announced its second list of 43 Lok Sabha candidates across five States and one Union Territory, with party general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal stating that 76.7% of the candidates belonged to the Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC), and minorities.

Deputy Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Gaurav Gogoi will be contesting from a new seat in Upper Assam, Jorhat, as his existing seat of Kaliabor has been renamed as Kaziranga after its boundaries were redrawn during a delimitation exercise by the ECI in 2023.

In its first list, the party announced the names of 39 candidates, including that of Rahul Gandhi, who will seek a re-election from Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in Kerala.

On March 10, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) announced candidates for all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal, putting an end to speculation over its pre-poll seat sharing with the Congress.

The list of Trinamool Congress candidates had certain surprises, including former cricketers Yusuf Pathan from Berhampore and Kirti Azad from the Bardhaman Durgapur Lok Sabha seat. The party retained veteran MPs, including Sudip Banerjee from Kolkata and Saugata Roy from the Dum Dum Lok Sabha seat, and Kalyan Banerjee from Serampore.

Read the full story here.

The BJP on Wednesday released its second list of candidates for the coming Lok Sabha polls, featuring Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari contesting from Nagpur, Anurag Thakur from Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh, Pralhad Joshi from Dharwad and Piyush Goyal, who is also the Leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha, from Mumbai North.

The list of 72 candidates covered 10 States and one union territory, with all seats now declared for Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Tripura and Uttarakhand. The list appeared a mixed bag with some expected faces making it, with significant drops as well.

In its first list, the party announced the names of 195 candidates, including that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ,who will once again contest from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.

Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR, whose managing director is the well known lottery magnate Santiago Martin, was the single largest donor to political parties between April 12, 2019 and January 24, 2024, according to the electoral bonds data released by the State Bank of India and published by the Election Commission of India on March 14, on the orders of the Supreme Court.

Read the full story here.