Lok Sabha polls highlights: ‘A farewell party,’ BJP’s dig at INDIA bloc’s meet

Lok Sabha Election 2024 LIVE Updates: Narendra Modi (Varanasi), Afzal Ansari (Ghazipur), Ravi Shankar Prasad (Patna Sahib), Pawan Singh (Karakat), Kangana Ranaut ( Mandi), Manish Tewari (Chandigarh) are some of the key candidates contesting in the final phase of the polls tomorrow.

Lok Sabha Election 2024 LIVE Updates: Around 70,000 security personnel, including central forces, have been deployed in the wake of polling in 13 Lok Sabha seats on June 1, Punjab Chief Electoral Officer Sibin C said on Friday, reported news agency PTI.

Besides, 1.20 lakh polling staff have been deployed for the voting in the state, he said. Polling for 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab will take place from 7 am till 6 pm on Saturday.

Lok Sabha Election 2024 LIVE Updates: Bank holiday on June 1: The seventh phase of voting for the Lok Sabha elections is scheduled for June 1 after six phases were held on April 19, April 26, May 7, May 13, May 20 and May 25. Owing to polling on June 1, banks in various cities will be closed. For phase 7 of the Lok Sabha Election 2024, banks will remain closed in Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Chandigarh. Dig Deeper

Lok Sabha Election 2024 LIVE Updates: On Saturday, the seven-phase Lok Sabha election will conclude with polling on 57 parliamentary seats across seven states and the Union territory of Chandigarh. Once polling ends, all eyes will be on exit polls that would predict which alliance might form the country’s next government – the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) or the Congress-led opposition INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) bloc. Dig Deeper

Lok Sabha Election 2024 LIVE Updates: EVMs and other polling materials are being handed over to poll parties ahead of tomorrow’s voting in Kolkata, West Bengal, reported news agency PTI.

Check out these news stories related to the Lok Sabha Election 2024

Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge says, “He (PM Modi) is from Gujarat, and if a person from Gujarat doesn’t know about Mahatma Gandhi and also doesn’t promote him, what can I say?… Being a member of RSS, you propagated its ideology and principles but you did nothing for Mahatma Gandhi. What have you done in the last 23 years when you were the CM of Gujarat for 13 years and now the PM?… You liked it to be with Godse but not with Mahatma Gandhi…”

Union Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nominee from Guna parliamentary seat in Madhya Pradesh, Jyotiradtiya Scindia on Friday expressed his hope that every citizen of the country would exercise their voting rights in the last phase of Lok Sabha election.

The seventh and final phase of polling for Lok Sabha election 2024 is scheduled to be held on June 1.

“Tomorrow is the last stage of the festival of democracy. I hope that every citizen will exercise their voting rights, which is the biggest right in democracy, to build the future in the final phase of the Lok Sabha poll. Let there be good polling,” Scinida told reporters.

He further added, “When the results come on June 4, India’s flag will be hoisted on the world stage in the third term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. We all will move ahead with PM Modi’s resolution of making India the third largest economy in the world by 2027 under his leadership.”

BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla voiced sharp criticism against the Congress and the INDIA bloc on Friday, accusing them of opposing Hindu practices in their efforts to criticize Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his ongoing meditation at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanniyakumari.

“Today, it is evident that in opposing Modi, a new dimension of opposition to Sanatan Dharma has emerged, where they (Congress-INDI alliance) don’t even want a Sanatani Hindu to meditate or practice austerity,” Poonawalla said.

Poonawalla questioned the basis of the opposition’s claims, stating, “What has happened to the Congress party or the INDI alliance? If the Prime Minister says something, they have a problem. Now, if the Prime Minister goes to Kanyakumari and meditates at the Vivekananda Rock, they still have a problem. It seems that the Prime Minister’s meditation is causing them complete frustration.”

While the electioneering stopped on Thursday across the state for the seventh and final phase of poll on June 1, the showdown between the education department and the state varsities, which started ahead of election announcement and brought the Raj Bhawan and the department face to face, did not.

All through the electioneering, one striking aspect was the way education remained a big issue, with the matter of higher education turmoil reaching the Patna High Court and still remaining unresolved, leaving thousands of teachers and employees as also guest teachers without salary and retired ones without pension for over four months.

The schools, too, witnessed resentment all through the period over timing and later running of classes in extreme heat wave, prompting intervention from the Governor and the CM after several students fainted and the Opposition as well as the NDA alliance partners went on the offensive.

Patna native Sahil Kumar, a graduate from a city-based college, has channelised his frustration about not getting a job into a tea-selling venture with a quirky name, ‘Berozgar Chaiwala’, more to serve a social message than the popular beverage.

His brother Suraj Kumar, a partner in the small business, quips it is a “start-up”. He also points out the irony of the situation as loudspeaker-mounted campaign vehicles run by various candidates blare out their list of promises, including jobs.

These vehicles pass daily by their pushcart stationed along a roadside near the popular Dakbungalow Chouraha in the heart of the city.

On election preparation in Punjab, Chief Election Officer, Sibin C says, “In Punjab, there are a total of 24,451 polling stations…Approximately, 1.25 lakh polling staff have been deployed…According to the Election Commission of India, minimum facilities have been ensured at all polling stations….In view of the heat wave, proper arrangements have been made…I appeal to the voters of Punjab to vote in large numbers and achieve the target of more than 70% voter turnout”…

Prime Minister Narendra Modi concluded the Bharatiya Janata Party’s poll campaign on May 30, and is currently on a two-day visit to Tamil Nadu. PM Modi commenced his meditation break in Kanniyakumari on Thursday, at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial.

On PM Modi’s visit to Tamil Nadu for meditation, Union Minister Ramdas Athawale says, “…The PM believes in meditation. The PM has gone there to think about what to do next for the country and society. The opposition is accusing him of wrong things. The opposition reacts to every action of the PM. This is not right…”

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi meditates at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanniyakumari, BJP leader CR Kesavan said that PM Modi’s meditation is not for personal salvation but for the upliftment of India.

“Currently, PM Modi is meditating and praying at the divine feet of our Bharat Mata at Kanyakumari in the Vivekananda rock memorial. PM Modi is meditating and praying not for personal salvation but for the uplifting of Bharat,” Kesavan said.

Kesavan emphasised that PM Modi is following in the footsteps of Swami Vivekananda, making this meditation a milestone event in Indian history.

“PM Modi following in the footsteps of Swami Vivekananda to meditate will be a milestone event in our history, and on June 1st, after he completes 45 hours of meditation, he will come out with a renewed resolve and faith to serve the people of Bharat,” Kesavan said.

It is a battle between a politician who fought a poll over four decades back and an electoral debutant in Himachal Pradesh’s Kangra Lok Sabha constituency.

Making his debut in this general elections at the age of 62, Dr Rajiv Bharadwaj of the BJP is contesting against Congress leader and former Union minister Anand Sharma in the parliamentary seat made up of 13 assembly segments of Kangra district and four of Chamba district.

While Bharadwaj has the legacy of his uncle and former chief minister Shanta Kumar and his popularity as a grassroots BJP worker and doctor to bank on to connect with the electorate, Sharma held a spirited campaign along with local and national Congress leaders to woo voters.

The Congress candidate last contested a poll from the Shimla assembly seat in 1982 and lost. He was a Union minister as a member of the Rajya Sabha.

Polling for 13 Lok Sabha constituencies in Punjab and the lone Chandigarh seat will be held on Saturday, with INDIA bloc allies Congress and AAP contesting separately and the SAD and BJP also deciding to test the poll waters alone.

Prominent candidates in the fray are four-time MP Preneet Kaur, former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, three-time MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Ravneet Singh Bittu.

The BJP and Shiromani Akali Dal are contesting the Lok Sabha polls on their own for the first time since 1996 while two INDIA bloc parties – the Congress and AAP have fielded their own candidates.

The Sukhbir Badal-led party walked out of the NDA in 2020 over the now-repealed farm laws.

Besides the Congress, AAP, SAD and the BJP, two other parties –Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) and the Bahujan Samaj Party have also fielded their candidates.

Among the prominent faces, BJP nominee and four-time MP Preneet Kaur is seeking re-election from the Patiala parliamentary constituency.

The Income Tax Department has achieved a record seizure of ₹1100 crore in cash and jewellery during the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, sources told ANI.

As per the sources, by the end of May 30th, the department had seized approximately ₹1100 crore worth of cash and jewellery, marking a 182 per cent increase compared to the ₹390 crore seized during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The Model Code of Conduct (MCC) came into force on March 16, the day the Election Commission of India announced the dates for the Lok Sabha elections. Since then, the Income Tax Department has been vigilant in monitoring and seizing unaccounted cash and valuables that could potentially influence voters.

Narendra Modi swept to power a decade ago on promises to transform India’s economy, and it would be hard to argue he hasn’t made strides. As he seeks a third term as prime minister, the country’s economic growth is the envy of the world, its stock markets are booming, and new buildings and highways are popping up everywhere.

There are cracks in the facade, though, that his political challengers hope to benefit from, including high unemployment, persistent poverty and the sense that only a small portion of India’s 1.4 billion people has been able to cash in on the good fortune.

“You have a booming economy for people higher up on the socioeconomic ladder, but people lower down are really struggling,” said Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

PM Narendra Modi meditates at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanniyakumari, where Swami Vivekananda did meditation. He will meditate here till 1st June.

As the voting date inches closer, politicians in Himachal Pradesh are letting go of no opportunity in trolling their rivals, more often than not choosing as their weapon the social media and its memetic powers.

A scramble for gaffes is on between the two key political parties in the fray here – Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party –, whose followers have been posting slip-ups and blunders of their rivals, in some cases, to cut them down to size, in others, to bring to fore internal cracks.

A peep into the official accounts of both parties reveals that they are big on using bytes of the general public, especially those with a flair for a good rant.

War rooms have been set up for cyber-rattling to catch opponents on the wrong foot.

For instance, the BJP has uploaded a video showing Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge mispronouncing the name of the town where he was addressing a rally, as well as the names of the party colleagues from the state.

India’s six-week long national election is in its final phase, with voting concluding on Saturday, and financial markets are keenly awaiting the verdict after counting scheduled for June 4.

Pollsters and political analysts differ on the possible outcome of the election, with lower voter turnout and apathy seen as risks for the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP and its allies won 352 of the 543 seats in India’s lower house of parliament at the last election in 2019 with the BJP alone winning 303 seats.

The BJP on Thursday termed Manmohan Singh’s remarks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi “laughable” and said that despite having quit active politics, the former PM has not given up his habit of misleading the people of the country.

In a letter to voters of Punjab ahead of the seventh phase of the Lok Sabha polls on June 1, Manmohan Singh accused Modi of lowering the dignity of public discourse and the gravity of the office of the prime minister by giving “hateful speeches” during the election campaign.

He also accused Modi of attributing some false statements to him.

Hitting back, BJP national spokesperson R P Singh said in a post on X, “The nonsense that former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has stated suddenly in his letter on the last day of the Lok Sabha election campaign is not only laughable but it also does not suit the person who held the post of country’s prime minister.”

The Congress controlled the narrative during the Lok Sabha polls and placed a new vision for the country before the people, former party chief Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday, exuding confidence that the INDIA bloc will form the next government.

In his message to the people and Congress workers at the end of the campaign for the Lok Sabha polls, Gandhi said, “We were successful in fighting the elections on real issues related to the people and despite the repeated attempts of the Prime Minister to mislead, we raised the voice of farmers, workers, youth, women and the deprived.”

“I bow before the great people of the country and confidently say to the workers of Congress that an INDIA bloc government is going to be formed,” he said in his video message in Hindi.

Odisha chief minister and Biju Janta Dal (BJD) supremo Naveen Patnaik on Thursday refuted the claims of his close aid and ex-bureaucrat VK Pandian being the former’s successor, saying that his successor would be decided by the people of Odisha.

“I have said repeatedly that the successor will be decided by the people of the state. That is the natural result of these things,” Patnaik said in an interview to news agency ANI.

The BJD chief further dismissed claims of top Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, including Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma and union minister Dharmendra Pradhan, that Pandian is “controlling the state”, saying saffron camp’s allegations are ridiculous and hold no significance.