Election Financial News

By Nathan Layne and Gram Slattery

JERUSALEM (Reuters) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday dismissed the idea of holding early elections, while thousands of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv for an anti-government protest.

Mamata Banerjee on Saturday alleged that there «is an attempt to bulldoze» the federal structure of the country and «change the spirit of the Constitution». «In the name of one nation-one election, which is proposed, there is one leader and one party now in the country,» Banerjee said. «Media is totally purchased and the judiciary is under political pressure,» she alleged, and asked: «Are we moving towards a presidential form of government?»

370 seats as a tribute to leader Syama Prasad Mookerjee. He also advised party workers to build the general election campaign around the BJP's pro-poor work and the country's development, saying the opposition could try and raise «unnecessary emotional issues». He reiterated the BJP's target of winning 370 seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha election.

Modi 3.0 would be a reality. “In the full budget in July, our government will present a detailed roadmap for our pursuit of Viksit Bharat,” she said, her emphasis falling precisely on two words — “our government”. This is possibly the first time a finance minister has exuded such confidence in presenting a vote-on-account, saying on record that the same regime would present the full budget after the elections. ALSO READ: Agenda of Modi 3.0: It will be driven by aspirations like $7 trillion GDP by 2027 The question is, if the Narendra Modi government indeed gets installed for the third time in May, and with a resounding mandate, will it embark on bold and pathbreaking economic reforms? Will the new regime be able to navigate the complexities of pending reforms requiring widespread consensus? Will it unveil radical and unexpected economic overhauls in food, fertiliser and petroleum subsidies? Will it, perhaps, discard all income-tax exemptions?

ANI, “...I can't say on Kamal Nath, but some leaders looking for a greener posture, they are leaving the Congress party. That doesn't make any change. Millions of workers are strongly behind the Congress party...

BJP Chief JP Nadda appealed to the rank and file not to lose its focus from the goal of crossing the 370-seat mark in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections and expressed confidence that the party will not only achieve a hat-trick of wins this time but also do so with a record margin. He credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for bringing the party to this position, the country has made notable achievements in the last ten years- from the Ram temple at Ayodhya to the abrogation of Article 370 and reservation for women. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was given a standing ovation during the inaugural session of the BJP national council here on Saturday when party chief JP Nadda thanked him for the consecration of the Ram temple at Ayodhya. Nadda also slammed the Opposition on the caste census issue, saying while it wants to divide the nation into several castes Modi has focussed on four groups- women, youth, farmers and the poor. In a speech that covered several achievements of the BJP and hailed Modi’s guidance and leadership, Nadda said the party has “won a century of elections” from the bottom up since 2014. He expressed confidence that BJP will meet the target of 370 seats in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.

(This Feb. 16 story has been refiled to fix a typo in 'blank-check' in paragraph 22)

Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on Saturday here said the poll panel will act in accordance with the directives of the Supreme Court regarding the electoral bonds scheme. Speaking to reporters, Kumar said the commission always works on the basis of transparency in information flow and involvement. «In its affidavit to the top court, the commission said it is in favour of transparency and when the order is issued, it will take action as directed by the SC,» Kumar said. To a question related to a case pending in the SC on conducting elections without EVMs, the chief election commissioner said, «Let the decision come...if required, changes will be made as per the court's direction.»

Earlier this week, Edmonton MLA Rakhi Pancholi said that buying a membership in the party she hopes to lead — the Alberta NDP — should not automatically bring a membership in the party Jagmeet Singh leads — the federal NDP — as it does now.

simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies but not with local body polls. The party has told the high-level committee on 'one nation, one election' that it supports holding Lok Sabha and state assembly polls together. It also said all local body polls — municipalities and panchayats — should be held together. However, the local body polls should not be held alongside elections to Lok Sabha and state assemblies, it underlined.

Maharashtra Deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar was asked if his faction of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) will put up a candidate from the Lok Sabha constituency of Baramati, the pocket borough of the Pawar clan, against his the cousin Sharad Pawar's daughter Supriya Sule, who is the sitting MP, he said, «Being the president of the party, I have the right to announce the candidates of my party, but I cannot comment on who will be contesting against them. I will announce the names of the candidates at the right time.» The name hasn't been announced yet but the buzz is Ajit Pawar's wife Sunetra Pawar will be contesting against Sule. The fight, if it happens, will take the divide in the Pawar clan down to the family stronghold from where Sharad Pawar, Ajit Pawar and Supriya Pawar have won several assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Early this month, the Election Commission of India declared Ajit Pawar's faction, which had split away last year from patriarch Pawar and joined hands with the BJP, as the real Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).

NDTV on Saturday. The comments came amid speculation about the former Madhya Pradesh Congress chief ditching the Congress and switching to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). According to the report, Kamal Nath conveyed his “unhappiness to the Congress leadership".

Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny’s death Friday at a Russian prison camp in the Arctic silenced a man who was arguably the most influential remaining critic of President Vladimir Putin and the authoritarian state the former spy has methodically built on the wreckage of the Soviet Union. Putin, who has effectively run Russia for 24 years and is seeking to extend his time in office for another six years in elections set for next month, now strides the Russian political stage with almost no visible challengers.

Ghulam Nabi Azad on Saturday indicated that he would not be contesting in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections as he would be campaigning for the candidates of his newly formed Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) candidates. Azad, who has refrained from contesting Lok Sabha elections after his defeat in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, asked his party men to gear up as 2024 would be the election year for Jammu and Kashmir. Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a function in Nagrota, Azad, who resigned from Congress after decades of association, also appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to resolve the issues of agitating farmers «once for all» as the protest is neither good for the government nor the farmers. «Parliament election is 100 percent taking place on its time and I can only guess about the assembly polls (in J&K) as I have no contact with the Election Commission or government. But it (assembly elections) has to take place as the Supreme Court has set a deadline of September.

Union Minister Ramdas Athawale on Saturday said he was contemplating contesting from either Shirdi or Solapur seat in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections and would take a final call only after discussing with the BJP high command. Speaking at a press conference here, the chief of Republican Party of India (A) said, «My party does not have a single member in Lok Sabha. I am thinking of contesting from Shirdi or Solapur. I want to come to the Lok Sabha. I will discuss this with J P Nadda, Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and decide.» Raking up the reservation issue, the Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment said, «In the beginning, 15 per cent reservation was given to SC community because their population was 15 per cent. ST was given 7.5 per cent because tribal population was 7.5 per cent. But now this population is nearly 25 per cent. Therefore, 2.5 per cent reservation should be increased to SC and ST that is the demand of many people. And, it is also my party's demand.»

By Guy Faulconbridge

Kamal Nath LIVE News: The politics of Madhya Pradesh remains heated up on Saturday amid speculations around senior Congress leader Kamal Nath joining the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) with his son and Chhindwara MP Nakul Nath. Kamal Nath is in Delhi and will reportedly meet the BJP leaders while his son Nakul Nath has removed Congress from his X bio.Madhya Pradesh Congress leaders dismissed the reports and claimed that Kamal Nath has been part of the party since the days of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi and he can never leave Congress.

Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president D K Shivakumar on Saturday said there are chances of his party winning this time in the coastal belt in the forthcoming Parliamentary elections. Addressing reporters, Shivakumar, who is here to participate in the state-level party convention of workers ahead of the coming Lok Sabha polls, said there is potential for change in politics, and there are visible changes in the attitude of people in the coastal areas. «We are holding the state-level convention this time in Mangaluru as we perceive chances of winning from this region,» Shivakumar, who is the Deputy Chief Minister of the state, said. He said that the issues of unemployment and business stagnation in coastal Karnataka will be addressed by the ruling Congress.

election commissioner and the chief justice were involved in poll-rigging in the recent election as he resigned from his post, taking the «responsibility for all this wrongdoing». Former Rawalpindi Commissioner Liaquat Ali Chattha's remarks came amidst jailed former prime minister Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party began nationwide protests against alleged rigging and stealing of its mandate in the February 8 elections. Speaking to reporters at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium, Chattha said the candidates who were «losing» the elections «were made to win».

Sora — OpenAI's new text-to-video generator. The tool, which the San Francisco company unveiled Thursday, uses generative artificial intelligence to instantly create short videos based on written commands. Sora isn't the first to demonstrate this kind of technology. But industry analysts point to the high quality of the tool's videos displayed so far, and note that its introduction marks a significant leap for both OpenAI and the future of text-to-video generation overall. Still, as with all things in the rapidly growing AI space today, such technology also raises fears about potential ethical and societal implications. Here's what you need to know.