Elections 2021 News Highlights: Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and the Union Territory of Puducherry are witnessing assembly elections in March-April. Polling will happen in a single phase in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry on April 6. While voters in Assam will cast their ballots in three phases, polling in Bengal will happen across eight phases. The first phase of voting happened on March 27. The election campaign and canvassing is gathering steam. Counting of votes in all states will happen on May 2. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is hoping to retain power in Assam even as it faces ‘Mahajot’, the joint opposition alliance comprising the Congress, AIUDF and other regional parties. In Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress is fighting to keep BJP’s surge at bay. The saffron party has shown a dramatic electoral rise in the state over the last few years. Congress and the Left Front, which are allies in West Bengal, are competing for power in Kerala. The Congress-led UDF and the ruling LDF have been winning alternate elections since the early 1980s. Tamil Nadu’s ruling AIADMK has continued its alliance with the BJP amid a challenge from MK Stalin-led DMK and its alliance partners. However, one of the key things to watch out for in the southern state is how some of the smaller parties – including that of actor Kamal Haasan and TTV Dhinakaran’s AMMK – may impact the poll outcome. With their government having collapsed due to defections weeks before the election, V Narayanasamy-led Congress is battling the BJP-NR Congress alliance in Puducherry.
I can guarantee that MK Stalin will become the Chief Minister. The decision has been made, now elections will formalize it. But the fight does not stop here as RSS and BJP have unlimited money. To stop them, we have to first oust them in Tamil Nadu and then remove them from Delhi, says Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in Salem
Assembly Elections 2021 LIVE Updates | The Assam unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has reportedly expelled seven leaders from primary membership of the party for six years for contesting as independent candidates in the ongoing Assembly elections after being denied tickets.
Assembly Elections 2021 LIVE Updates | 56 bombs were recovered in the Narendrapur police station area in South 24 Parganas district last night. An FIR was registered against one Tarun and other unknown persons for involvement in the racket of manufacturing, transportation, and illegal use of bombs: Election Commission
No Tamil person wants to touch Amit Shah or Mohan Bhagwat’s feet, so the question is why the CM has submitted to the RSS and Amit Shah. The CM does not want to bow in front of PM Modi, but he must, as Narendra Modi controls the Enforcement Directorate, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the CM is corrupt: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in Salem
Defence Minister and BJP leader Rajnath Singh’s roadshow in Ernakulam has been cancelled as his aircraft couldn’t land due to bad weather.
Recently, Rahul Gandhi had dived into the sea with fishermen. Beware, his track record is not good, wherever he goes, he drowns & takes others along. Ask people of Amethi, it is still backward. Now he has come to Wayanad to drown it: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in Thrissur, Kerala
Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s prediction on phase one result is a mind game. Trinamool Congress will win the West Bengal Assembly election 2021. He makes such predictions and falls flat on his face. Look at what happened in Delhi, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh. This is a tonic from Delhi to boost BJP workers, but it would not work: TMC leader Derek O’Brien
They (BJP) have a lot of money, so they are trying to purchase people. PM Modi is taking land. He will snatch away everything as Adani is his friend. Chase away outsiders and BJP like you chased away CPI(M): West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee
Home Minister said they will win 26 out of 30 seats where voting took place in the first phase. Have you (HM Amit Shah) entered the EVM? Why didn’t you say BJP will win all 30 seats? Let us wait for May 2. TMC will win. Outsiders cannot rule Bengal: West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee
First phase gone, Congress still struggling for coordination in Bengal
In the first phase of the Assembly polls in West Bengal, no high-profile leader of the Congress came for campaigning even as the party is contesting the elections in the state in alliance with the Left.Sources said there has been a lack of coordination between the state's Congress unit president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and state in-charge Jitin Prasada, as Chowdhury has been taking decisions regarding the elections and leaders from Delhi drafted for the state are not being kept in loop.
2 Kerala cadre IAS officers sent back from poll duty in TN
Two Kerala cadre IAS officers, Sriram Venkitaraman and Asif K Yusuf, who were posted as election observers in Tamil Nadu have been called back by the Election commission of India to Kerala.
A Kerala-based newspaper group, “Siraj” had petitioned the Chief electoral officer Kerala to call Sriram back.
An FIR had been registered against Sriram in a case related to the death of the Siraj newspaper's Thiruvananthapuram bureau chief KM Basheer in the early hours of August 3, 2019. It was alleged that Sriram, who was driving a car under the influence of alcohol, had hit Basheer and killed him instantly.
AIADMK, BJP, PMK to campaign against DMK over Raja’s remarks against CM
The speech delivered by former Union minister A Raja on March 26 at the Thousand Light constituency in Chennai, in which he made lewd comments against Chief Minister Edappady K Palaniswami has landed the DMK in a soup.
While the AIADMK has lodged a formal complaint with the Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo, the party is trying to make it a major election issue with its alliance partners -- the Bharatiya Janata Party and the PMK.
The BJP’s central leadership is eyeing to garner power in Puducherry as the BJP, AINRC, and AIADMK alliance is sitting pretty in the Union Territory.
With several opinion polls predicting a landslide victory for the NDA coalition in the upcoming Assembly elections, the BJP's national leadership has exuded confidence that the combine will emerge victorious at the hustings.
Single-phase polling to 30 seats in Puducherry is slated for April 6. The All India NR Congress (AINRC) is contesting 16 seats, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nine seats, and the remaining five seats by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK).
