Thiruvananthapuram: Senior Congress leader and Lok Sabha candidate Shashi Tharoor has been booked for allegedly carrying out a false campaign against union minister and rival candidate Rajeev Chandrasekhar, police said here on Sunday.

The case was registered by the Cyber Police here on April 15 but its details were revealed only today.

According to police, the case against Tharoor was registered based on a complaint lodged by BJP leader J R Padmakumar who accused the Congress leader of carrying out a false campaign against Chandrasekhar during a television programme.

The complainant alleged that Tharoor, during the programme, had made defamatory statements against Chandrasekhar with regard to influencing voters of coastal regions in the upcoming Lok Sabha election.

The case was registered under Sections 171-G and 500 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 65 of IT Act, a cyber police official said adding that an investigation is going on in the matter.

IPC 177-G refers to raising false statement in connection with an election, while IPC 500 relates to defamation.

Tharoor, who is contesting from Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency, is yet to react on the registration of the case.

Thiruvananthapuram: A day after senior Congress leader D K Shivakumar questioned the contribution made by Rajeev Chandrasekhar to the development of Kerala, the BJP leader on Wednesday hit back by saying he does not need the certificate of a “corrupt” politician who is out on bail.

Chandrasekhar, who is facing off against Congress’ Shashi Tharoor in the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha constituency, said ever since he began his poll campaign, he has stated what he will do if he wins and will follow through on that.

He further said in the next couple of days he would be releasing a vision document on bringing development and investment to the southern state.

“Once I become an MP and a minister from here, for the next five years I will work to implement that vision document,” Chandrasekhar, also the Union Minister of State for Information Technology and Electronics, told a TV channel.

Regarding comments by Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister Shivakumar against him, Chandrasekhar said everyone knows the Congress leader was “an out on bail and a corrupt politician”.

“I do not require his certificate. Shashi Tharoor can have his certificate. Everyone knows what kind of person Shivakumar is, his politics and his background. So I have nothing to say to him,” the BJP leader said.

Shivakumar, also the Karnataka Congress chief, was in Kerala on Tuesday and at a press conference had questioned what contribution Chandrasekhar had made to Kerala’s development.

He had also said Chandrasekhar was morally obligated to resign as a minister before contesting the elections.

Shivakumar had also claimed there was no BJP or Modi wave in the country and asserted that the INDIA bloc will form the government at the Centre.

The Karnataka Congress chief had taken part in the roadshows of Tharoor and KPCC chief K Sudhakaran in Thiruvananthapuram and Kannur, respectively.

The Lok Sabha elections will be held in Kerala on April 26 and the results will be declared on June 4.

Tejasvi Surya

Bengaluru : BJP youth wing chief and current MP Tejasvi Surya, who is seeking re-election from the prestigious Bangalore South Lok Sabha seat, is facing a spirited challenge from Sowmya Reddy of the Congress.

The 41-year-old Sowmya, daughter of Minister Ramalinga Reddy, is a former MLA from Jayanagar here and lost the Assembly elections last year by a mere 16 votes.

Spread across eight Assembly constituencies, Bengaluru South has been a BJP bastion since 1991. In the 2023 Assembly elections, the BJP won five and Congress three.

In fact, since 1977, Congress has won here only once when former Chief Minister late R Gundu Rao emerged victorious in the 1989 elections.

A constituency with a significant Brahmin population, it had been represented mostly by members of the community.

Hoping to turn the tide against the BJP, the ruling Congress in Karnataka has put all its might behind Sowmya with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy D K Shivakumar leaving no stone unturned to boost her electoral prospects.

The Congress is banking heavily on its five guarantees and Sowmya being the Transport Minister’s daughter highlights how the ‘Shakti’ guarantee has allowed women to travel in non-luxury government buses across the state free of cost.

“Do you travel in buses? Which places have you visited in the recent past? Do you pay or travel for free?” Sowmya asked women voters during a recent roadshow.

During canvassing, Sowmya also makes it a point to tell people about the four other guarantees ‘Gruha Lakshmi’, ‘Gruha Jyoti’, ‘Yuva Nidhi’ and ‘Anna Bhagya’. “Who brought ‘Achchhe Din’? Is it Congress or the BJP? Which ‘Achchhe Din’ you will vote for?”

Like many other BJP candidates, Surya underlines the strides made by the country under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the past ten years, during his meetings with voters.

“Ten years ago, when you look at the state of our economy, the white paper very clearly mentions in detail the state of the country’s economy. We were counted among the most fragile economies in the world. Today, we are one of the top five economies. This journey from fragile five to top five captures how our institutions were strengthened,” Surya said.

The 33-year-old Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha president had been conducting talks by right-wing intellectuals, especially those affiliated with RSS and ‘Sangh Parivar’ in his constituency.

Ghaziabad: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday alleged the electoral bonds scheme was the biggest “extortion scheme” in the world and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the “champion of corruption”.

Addressing a joint press conference with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav here, Gandhi said there is a strong undercurrent in favour of the opposition INDIA bloc in the Lok Sabha elections and the BJP will be limited to 150 seats.

Yadav said the winds of change will start blowing from Ghaziabad in western Uttar Pradesh to Ghazipur and the BJP will be given a grand farewell in the Lok Sabha elections.

“We have to ensure that not a single vote is divided in the Lok Sabha polls,” Yadav said.

Criticising the now-scrapped electoral bonds, Gandhi said the prime minister claims that the scheme was brought to bring transparency in poll funding but then why was it struck down by the Supreme Court.

“The electoral bonds scheme is the biggest extortion scheme in the world. India’s businessmen know it very well. No matter how much the prime minister clarifies, it will have no impact because the entire nation knows that the prime minister is the champion of corruption,” Gandhi said.

On Modi’s criticism of his remarks that the Congress will end poverty in no time, Gandhi said no one said that poverty will end in one go but we can make strong efforts for it.

To questions on contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi, the former Congress chief said he will abide by his party’s decision on this.

Such decisions are taken by the Central Election Committee of the party, he said.

The SP and the Congress are fighting the Lok Sabha polls in alliance in Uttar Pradesh. The Congress is fighting on 17 seats while the SP and some other allies are contesting the remaining 63 seats in the politically crucial Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha.

The seven-phase Lok Sabha polls will begin on April 19 and the counting of votes will be taken up on June 4.

Ghaziabad : Amid intense speculation over whether he would contest the Lok Sabha polls from Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said he would abide by his party’s decision on it.

Gandhi made the remarks at a joint press conference here with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav.

Asked whether he would contest from Amethi besides Wayanad, Gandhi said, “On Amethi, the party will decide. Whatever order I get, I will abide by that.”

“In our party, these decisions are taken in the CEC (Central Election Committee) meeting,” he stressed.

Both Amethi and Wayanad will go to polls on April 26.

There is speculation that besides his declared seat of Wayanad in Kerala, Gandhi might also contest the Lok Sabha polls from Amethi, a seat he represented for three straight terms earlier, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from Rae Bareli, a seat that was previously held by her mother, Sonia Gandhi.

Both seats are considered bastions of the Gandhi family and the local units of the Congress have demanded that the two scions of the family contest from there.

The Congress has forged an alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh and is contesting 17 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

The Lok Sabha polls are scheduled to be held in seven phases starting April 19. The counting of votes will be taken up on June 4.

New Delhi: The Election Commission has ordered social media platform X to take down select posts of YSR Congress, AAP, N Chandrababu Naidu and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary for violation of model code of conduct, the microblogging site said on Tuesday.

The orders were issued on April 2 and April 3 and a follow-up email was sent by the poll panel on April 10 in which it cited a violation of the “voluntary code of ethics” if ‘X’ fails to remove the four posts reported to it.

‘X’ said the Election Commission of India has issued takedown orders requiring the microblogging site to act on posts containing political speech shared from elected politicians, political parties and candidates for office.

The poll panel found that the objectionable posts were in violation of the model code of conduct that bars criticising political parties based on any aspects of the private life of leaders or workers of other parties that are not connected with public activities or based on unverified allegations or distorted facts.

“In compliance with the orders, we have withheld these posts for the remainder of the election period. However, we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts and political speech in general,” the microblogging site said.

“We have notified the affected users and in the interest of transparency, we are publishing the takedown orders here. We call on the Election Commission to publish all of its takedown orders going forward,” it said.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati

Muzaffarnagar (UP): Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati on Sunday said her party will take concrete steps to make western Uttar Pradesh a separate state if voted to power at the Centre.

Addressing a rally here in support of the BSP’s candidate from the Muzaffarnagar Lok Sabha seat Dara Singh Prajapati, Mayawati also said the BJP has a very slim chance of coming to power again.

“You want western Uttar Pradesh to become a separate state. For this, concrete steps will be taken if our government comes to power at the Centre,” Mayawati told the gathering.

The BSP chief said if free and fair elections are held and voting machines are not tampered with, the BJP will not return to power this time.

“Most of the BJP’s time was spent on making wealthy businessmen wealthier and protecting them… The BJP and other parties run their organisations and contest elections with the support of these businesses. This was revealed by electoral bond data,” she added.

The former chief minister hit out at the BJP government for not recruiting people for vacant posts reserved for backward communities and making reservations in promotion redundant.

“In the last few years, with the BJP in power at the Centre and in most states, the progress of Muslims has stopped to a great extent. Violence in the name of religion has increased here,” Mayawati said, adding that poor people of the general category have also not received any benefits under the BJP’s rule.

Prajapati is pitted against Sanjeev Kumar Balyan of the BJP and Harendra Singh Malik of the Samajwadi Party (SP).

Before her rally here, Mayawati also addressed a public meeting in Saharanpur district.

The eight parliamentary constituencies of Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Nagina (SC), Moradabad, Rampur and Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh will vote in the first phase of Lok Sabha polls on April 19.

The counting of votes will be held on June 4.

The BS fought the 2019 Lok Sabha election in alliance with the SP and managed to secure victory on 10 seats.

The party has decided to go solo this time. The SP, Congress and the All India Trinamool Congress are contesting as part of the INDIA bloc and the BJP, Apna Dal (S), NISHAD party and the SBSP are part of the NDA alliance.

Uttar Pradesh has 80 Lok Sabha seats, the highest for any state in the country.

New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday issued another list of 10 candidates for the Lok Sabha election in Delhi and Punjab, tapping former Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi for the Jalandhar-SC Lok Sabha seat.

According to the list, the party has fielded veteran politician J P Agarwal from the Chandni Chowk seat and youth leader Kanhaiya Kumar from the North East Delhi seat.

Kumar will be pitted against BJP’s Manoj Tiwari, the sole BJP candidate not replaced in the national capital.

For the North West Delhi Lok Sabha seat, the party announced the name of former MP Udit Raj.

In Punjab, the party renominated its sitting MPs Gurjeet Singh Aujla from Amritsar and Amar Singh from Fatehgarh Sahib (SC) Lok Sabha seat.

Former MP Dharvir Gandhi will be contesting from the Patiala Lok Sabha seat. His candidature comes mere days after he joined the Congress leaving the Aam Aadmi Party.

The party has nominated its All India Kisan wing chief Sukhpal Singh Khaira from the Sangrur Lok Sabha seat and Jeet Mohinder Singh Sidhu from the Bathinda Lok Sabha constituency, which is currently represented by SAD chief’s wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal.

The Congress announced the name of Ujjwal Revti Raman Singh from Uttar Pradesh’s Allahabad Lok Sabha seat.

The opposition party also announced a list of 75 candidates for the Odisha assembly elections.

Ahmedabad: Election authorities in Gujarat will dispatch more than 20 lakh invites to voters, particularly women, across the state in their attempt to increase voter turnout in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, officials said on Friday.

The initiative will target over 13,000 polling stations where the difference between men and women voters remains at over 10 per cent, and where the overall voter turnout was less than 50 per cent during the last legislative elections, an official release said.

Gujarat Chief Electoral Officer P Bharathi will extend the invitation to about 20.3 lakh voters, mainly women, urging them to participate in the ensuing general elections, it said, adding that families will be requested to vote together.

The 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat will go to polls in the third phase on May 7.

In the 2019 parliamentary elections, Gujarat registered a voter turnout of 64.11 per cent, compared to the national average of 67.40 per cent.

“The Chief Electoral Officer has appealed to women voters to take time out of their busy schedules to vote with their families and inspire others to do the same through these invitation cards,” said the release.

In addition, District Election Officers have been instructed to conduct ‘Chunav Pathshalas’ at all polling stations to discuss the reasons for low voter turnout and to make efforts to ensure maximum voter participation, it said.

“Street meetings are being organised by Asha workers, Anganwadi workers, Booth Level Officers, school principals, talatis, gram sevaks, non-political social leaders of villages and members of self-help groups under Chunav Pathshalas”, it added.