Lok Sabha Polls 2024 LIVE: PM Modi holds mega roadshow in Hyderabad

BRS party calls for a statewide protest tomorrow in Telangana over the arrest of party's MLC K Kavitha by ED in connection with the Delhi Liquor scam, reports said. 

Lok Sabha elections 2024 date announcement live streaming: The Election Commission of India on Friday said that the full schedule for the upcoming general elections will be released on Saturday (Mar 16). A press conference will be held by the poll body at 3 PM local time on Saturday where dates will be announced for Lok Sabha elections as well as some state assemblies, it said in a post on X.

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Be it BJP, TMC, Congress, BRS, DMK, BJD, Samajwadi Party, YSRCP, Shiv Sena or others, almost every political party got money in the form of electoral bonds; BJP alone got more than Rs 6,000 crore. Our party AIMIM didn’t raise a single penny, but they all call Asaduddin Owaisi as BJP’s B-team, said  AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi

Following his return to the BJP, Arjun Singh stated, "I was elected as an MP in 2019 (with the BJP), and in 2021...amid post-poll violence, I had to maintain a distance from the BJP to ensure the safety of party workers. They were facing threats of violence... I observed that the TMC government aims solely to retain power through the assistance of law enforcement and thugs. The recent incident in Sandeshkhali exemplifies this. Sandeshkhali is not an isolated case; people in the border regions of Bengal endure similar conditions..."

Arjun Singh quit the TMC and rejoined the BJP today. Dibyendu Adhikari, who is also the brother of West Bengal LoP Suvendu Adhikari, quit TMC today.

“BJP received electoral bonds of over Rs 6,000 crore. If the central government has nothing to hide, then it should provide all the details itself. Election Commission and SBI have been pressurised by the central government to hide the details as much as they can,” says AAP Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj during a press conference in Delhi. 

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday said PM Modi and his BJP have been exposed by Supreme Court.

"PM had said- 'Na khaunga, na khane doonga', Today it has been exposed by Supreme Court how BJP made money out of electoral bonds," he alleged.

He further demanded bank accounts of BJP be frozen and a probe be initiated.

 "...Congress party accounts have been frozen. They (BJP) instructed I-T people to do this. Our nearly Rs 300 crores are frozen. How can we go for elections in this? Our accounts are closed but their accounts are open. Where is the level playing ground? I demand an inquiry at the highest level into this. Unless the truth comes out, their accounts should also be frozen...", Kharge said.

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.

(With inputs from agencies)

India's top court on Friday postponed the hearing on pleas to stay the new law that removes the Chief Justice of India from the selection panel appointing election commissioners.

Congress leader Jaya Thakur, the Association for Democratic Reforms, and others, challenging the constitutionality of various provisions of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023.

The hearing in this matter will now take place on March 21.

The court allowed the ECI request and directed its registry to return the poll bonds data submitted to it to the poll body. “The Registrar Judicial of this court shall ensure that the data which has been filed by ECI in pursuance of the interim orders of the court is scanned and digitised. This may be completed by 5 PM tomorrow. Once this exercise is completed, the original shall be returned to ECI counsel Amit Sharma, who shall then upload it on the ECI website…,” the court directed.

The Indian Supreme Court on Friday (March 15) refused to put on hold the appointment of two election commissioners. As per reports, the apex court will hear the case next week.

The Indian Supreme Court on Friday (March 15) dismissed a petition alleging irregularities in the operation of electronic voting machines (EVMs). The court, led by Justice Sanjiv Khanna, stated that they "cannot go by assumptions".

"How many petitions about EVMs? Every method will have its plus points and negatives, we cannot go by assumptions."

"We have already examined and are examining this issue. I saw on their website there are already 10 such cases. We are not inclined, sorry," said the court.

The Election Commission will hold a press conference tomorrow at 3 pm to announce the schedule for the General Elections 2024 and some State Assemblies. The ECI will livestream the conference on various social media platforms.

In the electoral bonds case, the Indian Supreme Court said on Friday that the SBI did not disclose the number of bonds it had to. 

A first information report (FIR) has been filed against former Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa for allegedly sexually assaulting a minor girl, the news agency ANI reported on Friday (Mar 15).

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The Election Commission of India (ECI) published data regarding political donations through electoral bonds on its website late Thursday (Mar 14). The data, furnished after an order by the Supreme Court, revealed the ruling BJP was the biggest beneficiary of the now-banned scheme with having received INR 6,000 crore ($732 million) over the last five years.

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In a few moments from now, the Supreme Court will hear an application filed by the Election Commission seeking modification of the operative portion of its March 11 order in the electoral bonds case.