Narendra Modi and Amit Shah at BJP office in New Delhi Thursday. (Express photo by Praveen Khanna)
Lok Sabha Election Results 2019 HIGHLIGHTS: The Election Commission of India Friday released the final tally of Lok Sabha Elections 2019. The BJP scripted history by winning a record 303 seats out of 542 whereas the Congress could manage only 52 seats. Narendra Modi, the first non-Congress full majority Prime Minister to be re-elected, has done so with a stronger majority. With the saffron surge across the country, the Congress has been pushed to the margins of national politics — so much so that it has not yet managed to claim the statutory position of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.
Union Cabinet meeting held Friday passed the resolution to dissolve 16th Lok Sabha. The NDA parliamentary committee meeting is also scheduled to take place Saturday, where discussions regarding the government formation and swearing-in of the new Cabinet could take place. EXPRESS DATA | Election results dashboard
After a historic sweep in the Lok Sabha elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet President Ram Nath Kovind Friday. Earlier in the day, he met senior BJP leaders LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi at their residences.
US President Donald Trump Friday telephoned Prime Minister Narendra Modi to congratulate him on his "historic" electoral victory during which both the leaders pledged to continue to strengthen the US-India strategic partnership, the White House said.
"President Donald Trump called Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to congratulate him for his Bharatiya Janata Party's historic election victory," according to the White House.
"The President and Prime Minister pledged to continue to strengthen the United States-India strategic partnership, building on the achievements of the last two years." it said.
(PTI)
President Ram Nath Kovind today hosted a banquet in honour of the outgoing Union Council of Ministers, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
Five months after the BJP lost the Assembly elections in Rajasthan, the party made a thumping comeback in the state Thursday, winning all 25 Lok Sabha seats along with its allies.
In most Lok Sabha constituencies of Rajasthan, the Congress candidates could never take the lead, and by Thursday evening, 15 of the 24 BJP candidates in the state were leading by a margin of over 3 lakh votes. The Congress ended up drawing a blank – the same fate it had met in 2014.
Hanuman Beniwal from the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party, who had allied with the BJP and contested the elections as the NDA candidate from the Nagaur constituency, also won against Congress candidate Jyoti Mirdha by a margin of 1,81,260 lakh votes. Read more
It was a mixed outing for super rich candidates as five of them emerged victorious and an equal number suffered defeat in the Lok Sabha polls. Prominent winners include Congress' Nakul Nath, son of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, while Jyotiraditya Scindia was among big losers, as per the EC data.
The country's richest candidate Ramesh Kumar Sharma, who fought as an independent from Patliputra parliamentary seat in Bihar, lost his deposit as he secured only 1,556 votes. Sharma had declared a net asset of Rs 1,107 crore in his nomination papers.
(PTI)
The Congress can never die and the country needs it, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot asserted Friday and said the party will again reach out to people to ascertain the reasons for its drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls. The senior Congress leader said the BJP played on emotions and sentiments of the people and never fought on real issues.
"People's mandate in a democracy is topmost and the Congress has protected it all these 70 years since Independence and accepted it with humility. I am pained that in this election the campaign was not issue-based and there was nothing for the farmers, poor, villages, backwards, Dalits and there was no discussion on providing jobs to youths," he told PTI.
"The BJP did politics only on religion, caste, nationalism and the bravery of soldiers. Rahul Gandhi did a lot to try and make the campaign issue-based. But, no vision for future was given and no achievements were listed and the BJP won over people by speaking lies. People got swayed and voted for them," he said.
(PTI)
The Election Commission of India Friday released the final tally of Lok Sabha Elections 2019. The BJP scripted history by winning a record 303 seats out of 542 whereas the Congress could manage only 52 seats.
The Congress Working Committee will meet Saturday at 11 am to discuss the election results. The meet can also decide on the future of Rahul Gandhi as the president of the Congress after the grand old party suffered successive defeats in the Lok Sabha elections.
Political leaders often switch parties before major polls in a bid to remain on the winning side, but that strategy does not appear to have worked in this Lok Sabha election as most turncoats failed to make it to Parliament, Election Commission data showed Friday.
Over 75 candidates had switched sides before the election, hoping to push their chance to become Members of Parliament, but at least 47 of them lost. Read more
The President accepted the resignation and requested the Prime Minister and the Union Council of Ministers to continue in office till the new Government is formed.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on President Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The Prime Minister tendered his resignation along with the Union Council of Ministers.
National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah said Friday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi cannot remove Article 35-A and Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir.
He said the prime minister should make efforts to unite the people of the country instead of dividing them.
"Let him be as powerful as he (Modi) likes, he cannot remove Article 370 and article 35-A (from the state of Jammu and Kashmir)," Abdullah told reporters here.
"Our right of Article 370 and Article 35-A should be protected. This is very important for us. We are soldiers of this country not enemies of this nation," he said.
(PTI)
Union Cabinet meeting held Friday has passed the resolution to dissolve 16th Lok Sabha. The new cabinet could be announced Saturday after NDA's Parliamentary meet.
US government advisor and President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump Friday congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his emphatic victory in the Lok Sabha elections.
Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, who lost to BJP's Pragya Singh Thakur from Bhopal Lok Sabha constituency, Friday said it is worrying to see the ideology of Gandhi losing to that of Nathuram Godse. "Today in this country, the ideology of the killer of Mahatma Gandhi won and the ideology of Gandhi lost. This is a cause of concern for me," ANI quoted him as saying.
Arjun Singh, elected BJP MP from Barrackpore, West Bengal: Mamata Banerjee is a vindictive woman, if you are with her your are right, if you're not with her you're wrong. She knew if I leave it will be a big setback for her and it is evident. That is why she has resorted to violence. (ANI)
All but one Left Front candidates now have the ignominy of losing their security deposit in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in West Bengal, a state which it had ruled continuously for 34 years till 2011.
Except CPI(M)'s Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya who got 21.04 per cent of the votes polled in Jadavpur, no other Left Front candidate has been able to achieve the required 16.6 per cent of the votes to retain their deposit money of Rs 25,000 each, according to Election Commission data.
In India, candidates for election to the Lok Sabha pay a security deposit of Rs 25,000. For Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates, the amounts are Rs 12,500 and Rs 5,000 respectively. Any candidate who fails to secure more than one-sixth (16.6 per cent) of the total valid votes cast would have to forfeit his or her deposit.
(PTI)
The NDA parliamentary committee meet will take place in Central Hall Saturday at 5pm.
After winning a historic mandate, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet President Ram Nath Kovind later today. Earlier in the day, he met senior BJP leaders LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi at their residences.