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Stage set for 3rd phase of LS poll covering 11 states, 3 UTs

April 9, 2014

vote8New Delhi, Apr 9: The stage is now set for the first substantial round of polling in the Lok Sabha elections tomorrow involving nearly 11 crore voters in 92 seats spread across 11 states, including Delhi and the national capital region and the riot-hit Muzaffarnagar.

This will be the third round in the nine-phased elections which began on April 7 and will conclude on May 12. Tomorrow's round will also cover three Union Territories.

Lok Sabha Speaker Meria Kumar, seven union ministers including Kapil Sibal, Kamal Nath, Shashi Tharoor (all of Congress), Ajit Singh of RLD and former army chief V K Singh and Harsh Vardhan (both BJP) are the key nominees among the 1419 candidates in the fray in tomorrow's round.

Ten of the 80 constituencies in politically key Uttar Pradesh will go to polls tomorrow and they include communally-sensitive and riot-hit Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Kairana, Aligarh, Bijnor, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Gautambudh Nagar and Bulandshahar.

With Narendra Modi aide Amit Shah's controversial "revenge" remarks in Muzaffarnagar having stirred a controversy, significance in attached to polling in these ten constituencies.

Prominent among those contesting in this phase are Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Ajit Singh pitted against former Mumbai police commissioner Satyapal Singh (BJP) in Baghpat, recent RLD entrant actress-politician Jaya Prada (Bijnor), film stars Nagma (Meerut) and Raj Babbar (Ghaziabad-both Cong), AAP's Shazia Ilmi and former Army chief and BJP's V K Singh in Ghaziabad, and riot accused Kadir Rana (BSP) in Muzaffarnagar.

Seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi will go to polls in which an estimated 1.27 crore voters will decide the fate of a total of 150 candidates including Congress' minister Kapil Sibal, former minister Ajay Maken, Delhi BJP president Harsh Vardhan, former DPCC chief J P Agarwal and Sandeep Dikshit, son of former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and BJP's Meenakshi Lekhi and Bhojpuri singer Manoj Tiwari.

Another important state going to poll tomorrow is Bihar where six of the total of 40 seats will be decided including Sasaram where Lok Sabha Speaker Kumar is seeking another victory.

In the wake of three-cornered contest in almost all 40 seats in Bihar, every seat will count and voting for six seats could show which way the wind is blowing in the state.

Other important leaders in fray tomorrow in Bihar include former Kerala Governor Nikhil Kumar and Chirag Paswan, actor-turned politician son of LJP President Ramvilas Paswan.

Kerala will witness a one-day polling to all its 20 seats where ruling Congress-led UDF and opposition CPI(M)-led LDF are locked in a fierce combat.

Among the key candidates in fray are six Union Ministers --Shashi Tharoor, Kodikunnil Suresh, K C Venugopal, K V Thomas, Mullapally Ramachandran, P C Chacko (all Congress) and E Ahamed (IUML) and former Union Minister M P Veerendrakumar.

Madhya Pradesh will have polling in in nine Lok Sabha constituencies where senior Congress leader and Union Minister Kamal Nath, former Union Minister and BJP leader Faggan Singh Kulaste and state Congress leader Ajay Singh are in fray among others.

Like Kerala, Haryana goes to single-phase poll to all its 10 Lok Sabha seats with four-cornered contests between Congress, BJP-HJC BL combine, Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and AAP.

Among leading candidates in Haryana are Congress' industrialist-MP Naveen Jindal, Deepender Hooda, son of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, and Rao Inderjit Singh who switched over from Congress to BJP.

The lone Lok Sabha seat in Chandigarh Union Territory will also to polls where main contestants are sitting Congress MP Pawan Bansal, two actor-turned-politicians Kirron Kher (BJP) and Gul Panag (AAP).

Odisha will witness polling in ten Lok Sabha and 70 assembly seats in the first phase and several constituencies fall under Maoist-hit areas where the red rebels have given a call for poll boycott.

Altogether 98 candidates, including Congress stalwarts and former chief ministers Giridhar Gamang and Hemanand Biswal, former union ministers Jual Oram (BJP) and Bhakta Charan Das (Congress) are in the race for the ten LS seats while Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is among the assembly candidates in fray tomorrow.

Besides Lok Sabha elections in Odisha, over 50 of the 70 Assembly seats in the state are going to polls tomorrow.

As the seats going to polls are in Maoist-hit areas, the Election Commission has stepped up security measures with 156 companies of central paramilitary forces and around 27,000 policemen besides three helicopters.

Maoists have given a poll boycott call in certain pockets. Altogether 21 Assembly segments have been identified as highly affected by Left Wing extremism, while 15 are moderately affected and 20 less affected.

Another 22 Assembly seats have been identified as communally sensitive where extra vigil is needed to be maintained during the elections.

"We have an additional 60 companies (100 personnel in a company) of CPMF besides an existing 96 companies of central forces in the state. The central forces will be deployed in the first phase polling. Three helicopters have been pressed into election duty," Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Odisha, Mona Sharma said.

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Agencies
February 11,2020

New Delhi, Feb 11: AAP chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has won from New Delhi assembly seat. He polled 46,758 votes, which is 61.1 per cent of total votes polled in the high profile constituency.

Kejriwal defeated Sunil Kumar Yadav of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who polled 25,061 votes, which is 32.75 per cent of total votes polled. Congress candidate Romesh Sabhawarl could get only 3,220 votes.

So far, the AAP has won 55 seats and is leading on seven seats. The BJP has won seven seats and is leading on two. The Congress is nowhere in the reckoning.

As per the details on the website of Election Commission of India at 8.27 pm on Tuesday, the AAP has secured 53.60 per cent votes, BJP 38.49 per cent, BSP 0.71 per cent, CPI 0.02 per cent, CPI-M 0.01 per cent, Congress 4.27 per cent, JDU 0.90 per cent, LJP 0.35 per cent, NCP 0.02 per cent, and NOTA 0.46 per cent.

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News Network
July 12,2020

Hyderabad, Jul 12: Hyderabad MP and All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Saturday condemned the demolition of a mosque and a temple inside the Secretariat building. He demanded the arrest of the contractor for demolition.
"During the process of demolition of the Secretariat building in Telangana, the mosque and temple were also demolished. The contractor must be booked and should be arrested. The public should know that we condemn this," he said while speaking to news agency.
Pointing out that his party MLAs Akbaruddin Owaisi and Moazam Khan have urged the state Assembly to look into the matter, he added, "We are not against the building of a new Secretariat, but what we asked for is not to destroy these structures during the process."
He welcomed the Chief Minister's announcement regarding the rebuilding of these structures.
"We expect the mosque to be built in the exact same place where it once stood. We expect the Chief Minister to speak to the representatives and meet our expectations and emotions about the mosque," he added.

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News Network
January 3,2020

Dhaka, Jan 3: Bangladesh's paramilitary force chief said on Thursday that a total of 445 Bangladeshi nationals returned from India in last two months following the publication of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) by the Indian government.

Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) Director General Maj Gen Md Shafeenul Islam disclosed the figure during a press briefing here.

"About 1,000 people were arrested in 2019 for illegal border crossings from India to Bangladesh, with 445 of them returning home in November and December," he said.

After verifying their identities through local representatives, BGB came to know that all the intruders are Bangladeshis, Islam said, adding that 253 cases were lodged against them for illegal trespass, while initial investigations found that at least three of them were human traffickers.

The BGB Director said the trespassing did not create any tension between the border forces of Bangladesh and India.

Last week, Islam visited India where he said that the creation of the NRC is completely an "internal affair" of India and the cooperation between the border guarding forces of the two countries is very good.

He said the BGB will continue to do its work of preventing illegal border crossings as per its mandate.

A BGB delegation, led by Islam, was on a bilateral visit to India to hold DG-level border talks with its counterparts, the Border Security Force (BSF).

The talks took place from December 26-29, during which a host of issues related to cross-border smuggling and activities of criminals and others along the 4,096-km-long front were discussed.

Responding to a question, Islam said, "No discussion was held at the conference over the (NRC) issue".

He said during the five-day talks held in New Delhi, the BGB demanded that the BSF should take effective steps to prevent killings of Bangladeshis on frontiers as casualty figures sharply rose in 2019.

"The number of border killings in 2019 was highest in the last four years. As per our calculation, the number of such unexpected deaths was 35," the BGB chief said.

However, the BSF estimate of the casualty figure is much lower than our calculation, he said.

Islam said the BSF is following the policy of maintaining maximum restraint and minimal use of force even after being attacked by "armed border offenders".

A statement issued by the BSF last month in New Delhi after the conclusion of the DG-level talks said, "On the concern of the BGB regarding the death of Bangladeshi nationals on borders, it was informed to them that a non-lethal weapon policy is strictly followed by BSF personnel on borders.

"Firing is resorted to only in self-defence, when BSF patrols are gheraoed and attacked by ‘dah’ (a sharp-edged weapon) etc. It was specified that the BSF does not discriminate between criminals based on nationality," it said.

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