Lok Sabha election 2024 Highlights: In Goa, PM Modi attacks Congress for ‘spreading lies about EVM’

Mumbai Congress president Varsha Gaikwad on Friday claimed the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition will win all the six Lok Sabha seats in the metropolis as people have made up their minds to save the Constitution and democracy. 

In an interview with PTI, Gaikwad, the Congress nominee from Mumbai North Central Lok Sabha seat and the sitting MLA from Dharavi, which falls under Mumbai South Central constituency, said she is not an "outsider" and will function as "people's MP" if she is elected.

West Bengal Mamata Banerjee suffered a minor injury on Saturday after she slipped and fell while taking her seat after boarding a helicopter in Durgapur. The chief minister had reportedly suffered a minor injury and was helped by her security personnel. Visulas of the incident showed her climbing the steps to the helicopter, and slipping while inside the chopper. Her security personnel quickly assisted her.

Lok Sabha election 2024 LIVE Updates: Union home minister Amit Shah on Saturday urged people to make Narendra Modi the prime minister for the third term to rid the country of terrorism, Naxalism and poverty, and to make India the third largest economy in the world.

“PM Modi worked to brighten the name of Gujarat on the world map, and gave a new identity to the state that is known for Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Patel,” the home minister added.

“It is going to be a landslide victory for the BJP in Telangana. People from every nook and corner of the state are looking towards PM Modi for his development agenda and welfare schemes. Last time, the people might have voted for the local issues, but this time they are definitely going to vote for PM Modi,” says BJP MP K Laxman ( @drlaxmanbjp ).

Lok Sabha election 2024 LIVE Updates: RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav has claimed that BJP people are in depression after the second phase of the Lok Sabha election 2024. 

"The polling for second phase of Lok Sabha elections concluded yesterday and BJP people are in depression. Everyone is now saying that if PM Modi is there it is difficult to end unemployment, control inflation, alleviate poverty. PM Modi came to Bihar yesterday, held two rallies, but he didn't talk about real issues. He didn't talk about achievements of last 10 years, he didn't talk about his vision for next five years for Bihar," said Yadav as quoted by news agency PTI.

Check out these news stories related to the Lok Sabha election 2024

The ruling Trinamool Congress lodged a complaint with the Chief Electoral Officer of the state on Saturday over the raids in Sandeshkhali by a joint team of the CBI and bomb squads of the elite National Security Guard (NSG).

 During Phase 2 of polling for the Lok Sabha in the state on Friday, the CBI and the NSG bomb squads carried out raids in Sandeshkhali and the North 24 Parganas district, recovering a huge cache of arms and ammunition from the house of Abu Taleb, a relative of local TMC leader Hafzul Khan, who is alleged to be a close aide of now-expelled ruling party strongman Sheikh Shahjahan.

Congress leader KC Venugopal on Saturday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's target of '400 paar' (400-plus seats) has faced a setback after the conclusion of two phases of the ongoing Lok Sabha election.

 Addressing a press conference in Thiruvananthapuram, KC Venugopal said, "PM Narendra Modi's '400 paar' hype has been crushed to the ground after the first and second phase of elections. INDIA alliance is definitely going to win this time. PM Modi's speech during the campaign has been an attempt to polarise the elections. Congress is very confident about winning with a high majority in Rajasthan, Bihar, and other states."

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath says, "The people who are rejecting EVMs today are the same people who used to loot ballots." 

He further says, "Whenever Congress, Samajwadi Party or any other party associated with the INDI alliance is losing elections, they make every effort to blame the defeat on EVMs. This is not the first time, we have been hearing this continuously since 2014. We want to ask these people that the Congress government formed in Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka last year, whether it was formed based on ballot paper? In 2009, the UPA government was formed at the Centre, was it made of ballot paper? In 2004, the UPA government was formed in the country, and in 2018, the Congress government was formed in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, the AAP government was formed in Delhi, was it made of ballot paper? All these things clear that Congress is trying to mislead the country and the people of their allies are also trying to mislead the country. They want to blame their defeat on EVMs, whatever names I took, all these governments were formed using EVMs. In a healthy democracy, every voter has the right to cast his vote. The people who are rejecting EVMs today are the same people who used to steal ballots. And today, when the Election Commission of India has ensured the notification of elections by using technology, they are making malicious attempts to vent their anger on EVMs. The truth is that the two phases of elections till now have given the voice of the country to the Modi government...NDA is growing beyond 400 under the leadership of Bharatiya Janata Party, so in panic, they want to target EVM to vent their anger...."

Congress govt will bring employment guarantee scheme like MGNREGA for 100 days of guaranteed work in urban areas, says Priyanka Gandhi in Gujarat.

Congress leader Mohammed Arif (Naseem) Khan says, "Since independence, Congress gave equal opportunities to minorities and every caste. There is no question about me as an individual. I'm a leader of the Muslim community and Muslims are asking me why no seats have been given for Muslim candidates. So what I told them, is a big question for me. I thank AIMIM for their offer but I will not accept that, no contact with AIMIM. I'm with Congress and I will stay in Congress."

As many as eight Lok Sabha contestants have declared their family assets, movable and immovable, worth above ₹100 crore in Telangana, with BJP candidate from Chevella segment K Vishweshawar Reddy topping the chart with ₹4,568 crore. Significantly, the top three richest candidates in the polls are contesting from Chevella Lok Sabha segment. Congress candidate from Chevella Ranjit Reddy stood in the second place after he declared family assets to the tune of ₹435.33 crore with ₹23 crore liabilities.

Several people from the Sikh community in Delhi joined the BJP party in the presence of party National General Secretary Tarun Chugh, party leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa, and BJP President Virendraa Sachdeva, reports ANI. 

Located in the arid Marathwada region of Maharashtra where water scarcity and lack of industrialisation are key concerns, Latur (SC) Lok Sabha seat used to be a citadel of Congress before the BJP breached it in 2004 by defeating party stalwart Shivraj Patil. The former Union Home Minister represented this constituency between 1980 and 1999. Latur is also the home district of another Congress veteran and former chief minister (late) Vilasrao Deshmukh. Though the BJP gained a toehold in Latur by winning the 2004 elections, the Congress wrested this constituency in 2009 when it became a reserved (SC) seat. However, the saffron party won the constituency back in 2014 and retained it in 2019.

Nine senior officials of Assam forest department including the special chief secretary and head of forest force, MK Yadava allegedly threatened a section of the voters in Assam’s Karimganj parliamentary constituency to cast ballot for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s candidate for the seat, Kripa Nath Mallah, or get ready to face bulldozers after the counting of votes. 

Voting for the Karimganj seat took place on Friday. The seat has 24 candidates, but the main contest is stated to be between Mallah, the sitting MP, and Congress's Hafiz Rashid Ahmed Choudhury, in the seat, which has nearly 60% Muslims voters. 

A group of people from Cheragi and other villages in Karimganj and Hailakandi have approached a local court in Karimganj district against the nine top forest officials and 45 others for allegedly threatening them, using unparliamentary words and also trying to influence them to vote for a political party.

After the recovery of arms and ammunition from the house of Abu Taleb, a kin of ruling TMC leader Hafizul Khan, by a joint team of the CBI and the Bomb Squad of the elite National Security Guard (NSG) from the Sarberia area of Sandeshkhali, BJP leader Dilip Ghosh said on Saturday the state has turned into a "safe haven for terrorists".

 Hafizul, it turns out, is an aide of expelled TMC strongman Sheikh Shahjahan, the alleged mastermind of the attack on an ED team in Sandeshkhali while it was raiding his house in connection with the ration 'scam' and a key accused in the 'excesses' on women and land grab in the island.

Businessman-husband of Congress leader Priynaka Gandhi Vadra, who had earlier expressed his desire to contest from the Amethi parliamentary seat, has said that the entire country wishes for him to get into active politics. He also said that Smriti Irani, the sitting MP from Amethi has not fulfilled her promises.

 "The voice is coming from the entire country. They want me to get into active politics as I have always been among the people of the country. People always want me to be there in their region. I have campaigned there (Amethi) since 1999. Smriti Irani, the sitting MP from hasn't fulfilled her promises," Vadra said on Friday when asked whether he would contest from Amethi Lok Sabha seat.

A day after polling concluded for the 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala, the Congress on Saturday alleged that voters were harassed and the election machinery was hijacked by the ruling CPI(M) in the state with an aim to bring down the turnout percentage. AICC general secretary K C Venugopal said the alleged hijacking of the election machinery by the ruling CPI(M) was one of the reasons for the decrease in polling percentage this year as compared to the turnout in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Despite heightened political fervour and anticipation about the general elections for the 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala, the process concluded with a notable decrease in voter turnout, as the figure stood at 70.22 per cent at 8pm yesterday.

“When Congress believes that they will get all the votes of Muslims, then why aren’t they giving tickets to them? There's a fight going on within the (INDIA) alliance,” says Union Minister Giriraj Singh on Maharashtra Congress leader Naseem Khan's ‘no ticket to Muslims in the state’ statement.

In the Bardhaman-Durgapur Lok Sabha constituency, a region known for altering political allegiance in every election, BJP candidate Dilip Ghosh faces a pivotal challenge to overturn this pattern and secure his political future.

 Since its establishment in 2009, Bardhaman-Durgapur has sent CPI(M), TMC and BJP representatives once each to the Lok Sabha in the three previous polls.

 In 2019, BJP's S S Ahluwalia clinched the seat from the TMC by a narrow margin of approximately 3,000 votes, marking it as a challenging battleground for the saffron party.

The Aam Aadmi Party workers in the national capital staged a protest campaign named 'Jail Ka Jawab Vote Se' on Saturday morning against the arrest of Delhi Chief Minister and party national convenor Arvind Kejriwal in connection with the excise policy case.

While staging a protest outside Laxmi Nagar Metro station, AAP East Delhi Lok Sabha candidate Kuldeep Kumar said that the public in Delhi is angry and they will teach the Bharatiya Janata Party a lesson on May 25 (Lok Sabha elections in Delhi). "BJP has conspired to put a popular Chief Minister behind bars in a fake case. The people of Delhi will teach BJP a lesson on May 25.

The public in Delhi is angry over Arvind Kejriwal's arrest," Kuldeep Kumar told ANI. Arvind Kejriwal was arrested on March 21 by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a money-laundering case related to the Delhi government's now-scrapped excise policy. Since April 1, he has been lodged in Tihar Jail.

"When I come to work in the fields in the morning, stray cattle are standing there, ready to attack. I was once hit on the back and was hospitalised for a week," says Keshav Kumar, a farm worker in Pilkhana village in Uttar Pradesh's Hathras. 

Besides, he said, he has been chased by cows and Nilgai multiple times. Dharmendra Singh, a farmer, in Firozabad's Akilabad village, says, "I lost 30 per cent of my produce due to stray cattle entering my field. 

There is drought, unseasonal rain and now this stray cattle menace. What are we supposed to do?" Instances like these are not uncommon in western Uttar Pradesh and encapsulate the stray cattle menace that farmers have been struggling with for several years now.

Polling concluded for 88 seats across 13 states and Union Territories under the second phase of general elections on Friday, with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala recording 72.70 per cent voter turnout. 

Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala witnessed a tough contest between INDIA bloc allies. Despite being a part of the INDIA bloc, the Congress and the Communist Party of India (CPI) participated separately in the elections. 

CPI fielded Annie Raja whereas the BJP fielded K Surendran as a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate in its attempt to put up a tough fight for the Gandhi family scion in Wayanad. Kerala, where polling concluded for all 20 Lok Sabha seats in the second phase of the general elections on Friday, recorded a voter turnout of 70.21 per cent till the last report, according to data shared by the Election Commission (EC).

Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak has expressed confidence in his party's victory in the second phase of the polls, stating that the BJP will win with a large majority. 

"Lotus (BJP) is blooming in the second phase of voting. A large number of voters came out of their homes and reached the booths in all eight seats...BJP will win with a huge majority. Samajwadi Party will prove to be a super flop show," Pathak told ANI on Friday. 

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Congress in-charge Avinash Pande has asserted that the INDIA alliance will win the Lok Sabha elections. Speaking to ANI, Pande said that this election will be fought very strongly by the INDIA bloc.

Pro-Khalistani separatist and Waris Punjab De Chief Amritpal Singh will contest the Lok Sabha polls from the Khadoor Sahib Lok seat as an Independent candidate, said his mother Balwinder Kaur on Saturday. 

Singh's mother also claimed that pressure was being put on him to contest the polls, adding that he will now begin his political innings from Khadoor Sahib. The Pro-Khalistani leader is currently lodged in Dibrugarh jail in Assam.

 "Pressure was being put on Amritpal Singh to contest the elections and now he is going to start his political innings from Khadoor Sahib Lok Sabha constituency. This election will not be fought by him on the platform of any party. This election will be fought as an independent candidate," Balwinder Kaur told media.