One seat was won by P.C. George whose party does not belong to any political front…reports Asian Lite News.
At the end of the last date of withdrawal of nominations, Kerala now has a total of 957 candidates whose fate will be decided by 2,74,46,039 electorate on April 6 when the 140-member Assembly goes to the polls.
In Kerala, while the fight is between the traditional rival fronts — the present ruling CPI-M led Left Democratic Front and the Congress-led United Democratic Front, also in the running is the BJP -led National Democratic Alliance.
In the outgoing Assembly, the Left in 2016 had won 91 seats and secured 43.48 per cent while the UDF had 47 seats with 38.81 per cent votes while the BJP had just one seat and secured 14.96 per cent votes.
One seat was won by P.C. George whose party does not belong to any political front.
While the Left led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, is trying to create electoral history by becoming the first sitting government to retain office, the Congress-led UDF is trying to wrest power and the BJP’s priority is to retain the lone seat that they won last time, though they claim that they would better their performance this time.
Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan
While Vijayan expects the results of the local body polls, held in December 2020, will repeat itself when it managed to retain the edge that they had in the 2015 local body polls, the UDF is expecting a repeat of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls when it won 19 out of the 20 seats.
The manifesto also promised to make Assam self sufficient in production of essential produce, “Assam Aahar Atmanirbharta Yojana” would be launched which would drive the state towards self sufficiency in essential food items within the next five years…reports Asian Lite News.
Only few more days are left for Assam Assembly elections. Ahead of polls, BJP President J.P. Nadda on Tuesday released the party’s manifesto focusing chronic flood management, protection and development of the Assamese culture, empowerment of youths and women, correction of the NRC and check infiltrations.
Announcing the ruling the BJP’s “Sankalp Patra”, Nadda said that there are 10 main focal issues in the manifesto to be implemented with letter and spirit after the party coming to power for the second time in Assam.
Accompanied by other central and state leaders including Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, Nadda lauding the efforts of NDA government, said that the party has been working tirelessly for the past five years for the inclusive development of Assam under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, supported by Home Minister Amit Shah and the vision implemented at the grassroots level by Chief Minister, other ministers and leaders.
Explaining the 10 commitments in the manifesto, the BJP President said that under the “Mission Brahmaputra”, new scientific approaches would be undertaken to stop floods in Assam and save the livelihood of people.
“Dredging would be done from Dhubri to Sadiya and build reservoirs to store excess water from Brahmaputra and its tributaries.”
He said that to empower the women under the state’s biggest flagship scheme “Orunodoi”, the monthly payments of Rs 830 would be increased to Rs 3,000 covering 30 lakh deserving families.
The BJP also promised to strengthen and protect ‘Namghars’ and ‘Satras’ (traditional Vaishnavite monasteries of Assam) and grants upto Rs 2.5 lakh to be provided to these traditional institutes.
“Namghars”, literally meaning prayer house, introduced by Srimanta Sankardeva, are places for congregational worship associated with the entire Assamese community and the Ekasarana sect of Hinduism, in particular, which is native to Assam.
While addressing the media, the BJP President said that to boost the future of Assam’s Children, free and quality education with trained teachers eould be provided every child under the ‘Mission Bala Unnayan’ in state government-run institutions.
Free bicycles would be given to all school students from Class VIII standard onwards.
Nadda said that under the 10 main commitments of the BJP, a process of correction and reconciliation of entries into the National Register of Citizens (NRC) under the Supreme Court mandate, would be initiated in a structured manner to protect genuine Indian citizens and exclude all illegal immigrants.
The apex court monitored the NRC published lists on August 31, 2019, excluding the 19.06 lakh people.
A total of 3,11,21,004 names were included in the NRC lists out of 3,30,27,661 applicants.
A majority of those left out from the list are believed to be Bengali Muslims and Hindus besides Gorkhas.
He announced that to safeguard Assam’s political rights, delimitation exercises would be undertaken to protect the political rights of the people.
The manifesto also promised to make Assam self sufficient in production of essential produce, “Assam Aahar Atmanirbharta Yojana” would be launched which would drive the state towards self sufficiency in essential food items within the next five years.
BJP workers .
“To make Assam ;India’s Fastest Job Creator’, two lakh government jobs would be provided to the youth of Assam every year and would also facilitate and enable the provision of eight lakh livelihoods in the private sector,” Nadda said.
He said that to promote the entrepreneurship, the BJP has promised to enable youths to shine and now the new pledge is to further empower them to dream big, scale newer heights and give them the push to become stakeholders in building an “Aatmanirbhar Bharat”.
“To empower Assam’s citizens with land rights, ‘Pattas’ would be given to all landless Indian citizens of the state in a phased manner,” he added.
In the last five years, the BJP government has claimed that it has given ‘Pattas’ to more than three lakh people.
Union Agriculture and Food Processing Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, who is the BJP’s Assam central observer, state BJP President Ranjeet Kumar Dass, Finance and Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma among other leaders were present in the manifesto release ceremony held at a hotel in Guwahati.
Elections for the 126-seat Assam Assembly would take place in three phases — March 27, April 1 and April 6.
It said electoral lists have been asked to submit the names of their candidates to the commission’s headquarters in Ramallah and Gaza…reports Asian Lite News
The Palestinian Central Elections Commission (PCEC) has started receiving nomination applications for the upcoming legislative election.
In a statement, the PCEC said it started receiving applications from Saturday and it will continue until March 31, reports Xinhua news agency.
It said electoral lists have been asked to submit the names of their candidates to the commission’s headquarters in Ramallah and Gaza.
Only electoral lists of candidates, not individuals, will be accepted, as stipulated in the recently-amended elections law, and an electoral list should have no less than 16 names of candidates and no more than 132, which is the number of seats of the unicameral Palestinian Legislative Council, according to the statement.
“Each nomination request will be studied within five days to make sure that the electoral list meets the legal terms of candidacy. After that, the PCEC will decide whether the electoral list is approved or not,” it said.
In January, President Mahmoud Abbas announced the 2021 general elections will include the legislative elections on May 22, the presidential elections on July 31, and the elections of the Palestinian National Council, the highest decision-making body of the Palestine Liberation Organization, on August 31.
Palestine starts technical meetings over preparations for polls(IANS)
The last Palestinian presidential elections were held in March 2005, and the legislative elections in January 2006.
The internal Palestinian division between Hamas and Fatah began in 2007 when Hamas forcibly took over the Gaza Strip from Fatah.
Since then, the Palestinian territories have been split into a Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and a Fatah-dominated West Bank.
