Election Financial News

Amit Shah asserted on Saturday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi took all sections of society along on the Ram temple issue and described the Supreme Court verdict on the matter as a reflection of India's secular character to the world. Speaking in Lok Sabha during a discussion on the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya and the consecration ceremony on January 22, he said that in no other country has the majority community waited for so long for a matter related to its faith. He lauded all those who participated in the long struggle on various fronts on the Ram temple issue. The Supreme Court verdict on the Ram temple showed India's secular character to the world, Shah said. People's struggle for constructing the Ram temple in Ayodhya began in 1528 and the legal battle fought for it started in 1858, he said, adding that it all came to an end on January 22 which rejuvenated India's faith and marked the beginning of the journey of a great India.

Samyukt Kisan Morcha on Saturday welcomed the conferring of Bharat Ratna on Chaudhary Charan Singh and MS Swaminathan but termed it an attempt to divert people's attention from government's failure to provide Minimum Support Price for crops as suggested by the Swaminathan committee. In a statement, the SKM also said Singh and Swaminathan will remain alive in people's memory for their contribution to farmers even without a Bharat Ratna and «denounced» Prime Minister Narendra Modi for failing to solve the crisis of farmers of India. «SKM welcomes BJP government's late recognition of Chaudhary Charan Singh and due recognition of Dr. MS Swaminathan for their contribution to agriculture and farmers in conferring Bharat Ratna on them. While Chaudhary Charan Singh had a role in implementation of Zamindari Abolition in UP leading to ownership rights for peasantry, as the Chairman of the National Farmers' Commission, Dr. MS Swaminathan made recommendations for income guarantee to farmers,» the SKM said in a statement. «However, the Modi government is honouring and decorating the leaders only to cheat the farmers and people. The PM has neither honesty nor sincerity and indulged in a poor vote catching gimmick intended to worsen farmers' misery and use tokenism to camouflage his services to big corporate forces associated with foreign companies in farming,» it said.

Chaudhary Charan Singh with a «small election» of 2024 is belittling him, Rashtriya Lok Dal leader Jayant Chaudhary said, refusing to spill beans over the said «deal» between his party and the BJP. He was asked about speculations of the RLD joining the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and switching over from the INDIA bloc after Bharat Ratna was announced for his grandfather. «If you compare a small election of 2024 with the great legacy of Chaudhary Charan Singh, you are belittling him and insulting his supporters. It is an insult to an honour like Bharat Ratna,» Chaudhary said. Asked about the allegations of a «deal» between RLD and BJP, he said, «The process of deciding on Bharat Ratna is a pious process. The government takes decisions in the interest of the nation, keeping in mind people's sentiment… 37 years after his death, a government thought of honouring him. If they are seeing something wrong with this and if they think there is a transaction, it shows their ideological decline.»

Amit Shah on Saturday said it is very unfortunate that there is a debate on the caste of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and alleged that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has a habit of telling lies publicly and repeating those thereafter. Shah also said it was a Congress government in Gujarat that included Modi's caste in the list of Other Backward Classes (OBC) in 1994 and the Centre included the prime minister's caste in its OBC list in 2000. «Modi's caste was listed in Gujarat as OBC on July 25, 1994. At that time, the chief minister of Gujarat was Chhabildas Mehta and the party in power was the Congress. Till that time, Modi had not contested a single election. He used to work for the organisation only. The question of his caste did not come at all. »Subsequently, the Gujarat government recommended for the inclusion of his caste in the central OBC list. It was finally included in the central OBC list in 2000. At that time also, Modi was not in a position of power — not an MP, not an MLA nor even a sarpanch. He became the chief minister in 2001. These people have a habit of distorting facts," Shah said at the ET NOW Global Business Summit 2024 here.

In August, Ali Bongo, then-president of the Central African nation of Gabon, made a startling revelation to a top White House aide: During a meeting at his presidential palace, Bongo admitted he had secretly promised Chinese leader Xi Jinping that Beijing could station military forces on Gabon’s Atlantic Ocean coast. Alarmed, U.S. principal deputy national security adviser Jon Finer urged Bongo to retract the offer, according to an American national security official.

RLD joining BJP-led NDA ahead of the general elections, the regional party leader Jayant Singh on Saturday praised the Modi government for honouring his grandfather and former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh with Bharat Ratna. He said that only a government «rooted to ground realties» could have taken such a decision. As soon as Singh started thanking the government for the honour in Rajya Sabha, Congress members objected and Leader of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge wanted to know the rule under which the RLD leader was allowed to speak. Kharge said it is a matter of pride and he «salutes» former prime ministers P V Narasimha Rao and Charan Singh and agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan, all of whom are being conferred with Bharat Ratna.

Amit Shah on Saturday said that the Citizenship Amendment Act, which was passed by the Parliament in December 2019, will be notified and implemented before the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. «CAA is an Act of the country, it will be definitely be notified. It will be notified before the polls. CAA will be implemented by the polls, and there should be no confusion around it,» Shah said speaking at the ET Now-Global Business summit here in the national capital. «CAA was a promise of the Congress government. When the country was divided and the minorities were persecuted in those countries, Congress had assured the refugees that they were welcome in India and they will be provided with Indian citizenship. Now they are backtracking,» Shah said.

Lok Sabha Elections 2024: The BJP will get 370 seats and the NDA more than 400 in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and form the government for a third consecutive term under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said here on Saturday. Shah asserted that there is no suspense over the outcome of the Lok Sabha polls and even the Congress and other opposition parties have realised that they will again have to sit in the opposition benches. «We have abrogated Article 370 (of the Constitution, which gave a special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir). So we believe that the people of the country will bless the BJP with 370 seats and the NDA with over 400 seats,» Shah said at the ET NOW Global Business Summit 2024. Asked about the possibility of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), headed by Jayant Choudhary, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and some other regional parties joining the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the home minister said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) «believes in family planning but not in politics», giving an indication that more parties may join the ruling coalition.

Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan on Friday both declared victory in elections marred by delayed results and militant attacks, throwing the country into further political turmoil. Here are top 20 updates on Pakistan election results, 1) The United States, Britain, and the European Union on Friday separately expressed concerns about Pakistan's electoral process in the wake of a vote on Thursday and urged a probe into reported irregularities. 2) The U.S.

congressional Republicans have held up further support for Kyiv, mindful of the presidential election this November and Donald Trump’s candidacy in it. A Trumpist provocateur and host on Fox News until he was sacked last year, Mr Carlson gave Mr Putin lots of chances to stir up American politics. For a supposed sorcerer of electoral interference, the president did a poor job.

called for a probe against the Pakistan Army for its alleged involvement in the “rigged" election. Check which US lawmaker said what. I am deeply troubled by reports of interference in this week's election in Pakistan.

Imran Khan on Saturday posted a pre-recorded audio-visual message created using artificial intelligence in which he also claimed victory. In the video shared on his official X (formerly Twitter), Imran Khan can be seen speaking in front of the camera, but his voice does not appear to sync with his lip movements. “Chairman Imran Khan's victory speech (AI version) after an unprecedented fightback from the nation that resulted in PTI’s landslide victory in General Elections 2024," he wrote in the caption.

Rajya Sabha will on Saturday, the last session of the ongoing Budget session of Parliament, hold a short-duration discussion on the White Paper put out by the Centre and on the Pran Pratistha of Ram Lalla. BJP parliamentarians Sushil Kumar Modi and Prakash Javadekar will raise the discussion on the White Paper, informing its impact on the lives of the people of the country. The nearly 60-page White Paper, which was tabled in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha by Sitharaman on Thursday, claimed that the banking crisis was one of the most important and infamous legacies of the UPA government.

defence ministry said on Saturday it had detected eight Chinese balloons crossing the Taiwan Strait in the previous 24 hours, two of which flew across the island, in an uptick of activity at the start of the Lunar New Year holiday. Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory despite the strong objections of the government in Taipei, has complained since December about the balloons, saying they are a threat to aviation safety and attempt at psychological warfare.

Pakistan's former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif changed tack Friday and said he would seek to form a coalition government after his party trailed independent candidates backed by his imprisoned rival, Imran Khan, in parliamentary election results. Sharif told supporters he was sending his brother and former premier, Shehbaz Sharif, to meet the leaders of other parties and invite them to join a coalition.

Check all the Pakistan Election Results 2024 Live Updates here on LiveMint.Former Pakistani prime ministers and bitter rivals Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan on Friday both declared victory in elections marred by delayed results and militant attacks, throwing the country into further political turmoil.Sharif's party won the most seats by a single party in Thursday's election, but supporters of imprisoned Khan, who ran as independents instead of as a single bloc after his party was barred from the polls, won the most seats overall.The United States, Britain and the European Union on Friday separately expressed concerns about Pakistan's electoral process in the wake of a vote on Thursday and urged a probe into reported irregularities.

Gold rate today: On account of hawkish rhetoric from various US Fed officials and the resilience of the US dollar index on stimulus buzz ahead of the US presidential elections this year, gold prices continue to trade sideways for yet another week. In the week gone by, the gold futures contract on the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) for April 2024 expiry ended at ₹62,303 per 10 gm level whereas in the international market, the precious yellow metal finished at $2,024 per ounce.

Narendra Modi said on Friday, asserting that the «curse of incremental thinking» had for long hampered India's progress till his government changed this mindset in the bureaucracy and the administration. He justified the White Paper on the decade-long Congress-led UPA government, saying if he had preferred political expediency over national interest, he could have brought this out much earlier but that would have created panic. Speaking at the ET Now Global Business Summit on Friday, Modi said he has been in the process of preparing the roadmap for his third term for the last 18 months and has taken feedback from over 1.5 million people till now. General elections are due to be held in April-May. «New Bharat will work at superspeed — this is Modi's guarantee,» he said.

Pakistan (ECP) has not yet announced the final poll results. Meanwhile, according to the unofficial provisional results reported by Geo News for 241 out of 266 seats, the independent candidates, mostly backed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) are leading with 97 seats.

Pakistan's electoral process in the wake of a vote on Thursday and urged a probe into reported irregularities. The main battle was between former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's party and candidates backed by ex-prime minister Imran Khan. Both declared victory separately.

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