Election Results 2019 LIVE Updates: The mood in the BJP is upbeat as exit polls have projected that the NDA is set to return to power.
Election Results 2019 LIVE Updates: Who will come to power? 60 crore voters will answer this question today. Counting of votes is set to begin at 8 am on Thursday, and initial trends are likely to set in by 11 am. The results of the Lok Sabha elections can be expected by this evening.
The mood in the BJP is upbeat as exit polls have projected that the NDA is set to return to power. The crucial states for the party are Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha. In UP, there’s a fierce contest between with the Mahagathbandhan of SP, BSP and RLD. In Bengal and Odisha, the party hopes to consolidate its position. By its own assessment, its candidates have performed well here.
Follow LIVE UPDATES on the Lok Sabha Election Results 2019
On the other hand, the Congress is geared with a three-step Opposition plan if the NDA falls short of the halfway mark of 272 seats. This plan will be put into action if trends signal a shift in favour of the Opposition.
Lok Sabha Election Results 2019 LIVE UPDATES: Will the NDA return to power or will trends shift in favour of the Opposition? 60 crore voters decide today.
Rahul Gandhi: "I respect the mandate of the people and congratulate Narendra Modi for his victory. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Congress cadres."
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan congratulated his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi for his resounding victory in the Lok Sabha elections 2019.
"Heartiest congratulations to Narendrabhai Modi for steering BJP towards this unprecedented victory in elections. Amitbhai Shah as BJP President & all dedicated workers of the party have put in enormous effort in making sure that BJP's message reaches every voter. It's such a wonderful feeling that in a country as large & diverse as India, electoral process has been so successfully completed & for that, my compliments to the electorate & all the agencies involved. May our great nation be blessed with a bright future ahead," Advani said.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis hailed BJP-led NDA's performance in the Lok Sabha elections saying the 'Modi wave' of the 2014 polls turned into a 'tsunami' this time, news agency PTI reported.
"In the previous election, there was a Modi wave. Now, it has turned into a tsunami. Going by the current trends, I think our seats in Maharashtra are likely to go up. It has also increased our responsibilities," he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said India has won again and together with everyone, a strong and inclusive nation will be built.
"With all development for all everybody's confidence = victorious India," Modi tweeted.
Continued projection of Narendra Modi as a decisive and strong leader in whose hands the country is safe. Post-Pulwama and Balakot, the party kept highlighting national security as a key electoral issue paid its dividend to the BJP.
Keeping in mind the possible losses in the state where it had reached its peak, the party leadership identified around 120 seats as new catchment areas and worked relentlessly there. Read more here.
According to latest trends, the BJP-led NDA appears to be sweeping the state of Bihar, leading in 38 out of the 40 seats in the state. With the RJD leading in only 2 seats, and the Congress tally at nil, the results are a big blow to the alliance, which was in direct contest with the BJP in the state.
The other alliance parties too — Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP), Jitan Ram Manjhi’s HAM Secular, and Mukesh Sahni’s VIP — have failed to register any win. Read more here.
BJP sitting MP and actor Kirron Kher has a lead of over 5,500 votes in Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat. She previously won with a margin of over 69,000 votes in 2014. In neighbouring Haryana, former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and his son Deepender Singh Hooda are trailing in Sonipat and Rohtak respectively.
Kerala election results 2019: Throughout the election campaign, Congress state president Mullappally Ramachandran kept repeating a phrase when asked about the expectations of the party. “20-20”, he kept repeating at campaign rallies and press conferences referring to the state’s 20 Lok Sabha seats. Early trends of the results released by the Election Commission Thursday indicate that Ramachandran’s predictions are indeed coming true. Read more here
Trends in the seven parliamentary constituencies in Delhi have indicated clearly that an alliance between AAP and Congress would not have been able to stop the BJP’s march.
BJP’s vote share tally in all seven constituencies — Chandni Chowk, East Delhi, New Delhi, North East Delhi, North West Delhi, West Delhi and South Delhi — is above 50%.
The May 23 election results also exposed another big myth – that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has a connect with the people and was a vote catcher. She was to the Congress's big bramhastra that the party unveiled for this election. READ MORE HERE
As the trends came in, pointing to another tenure of Narendra Modi as prime minister, celebrations broke out in the BJP's party offices across the country with people dancing to the sounds of drums. Click here for more photos
Narendra Modi will become the first non-Congress Prime Minister to return to power after a full five-year term. Read more here
Former cricketer Gautam Gambhir is leading by with a margin of over 60,000 votes in East Delhi over his nearest rival Congress' Arvinder Singh Lovely. AAP's Atishi Singh is in third position.
Bihar snapshot: Former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar is traling BJP's Chhedi Paswan by over 30,000 votes. RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha is trailing BJP's Nituanand Rai by over 21,968.
Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has comfortable lead of over 35,000 votes against Congress' Shatrughan Sinha.
Union Minister Giriraj Singh is also leading over CPI candidate Kanhaiya Kumar by over 80,000 votes.
BJP+ is currently leading in 323 seats.
Sensex hits 40,000 marks for the first ever time, rallies nearly 900 pts; Nifty crosses 12,000. (PTI)
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi is leading in Wayanad constituency, where is contesting the Lok Sabha elections. He is up by 36,000 votes against CPI's PP Suneer and NDA's Thushar Vellappally
Initial trends are in from the southern states; the DMK appears to be sweeping Tamil Nadu, while the Congress-led UDF may be headed for a landslide victory in Kerala. In Karnataka, the BJP is surging ahead, while in Telangana, TRS is leading in 10 seats. In Andhra Pradesh, the YSRC Party is up in 21 seats, while TDP is ahead in two. Follow LIVE updates here
Counting of votes for the 25 Lok Sabha seats in northeast India began at 8 am on Thursday. If exit polls are to be believed, the BJP-led NDA is set to conquer the region as various surveys have indicated a windfall for the saffron party and its allies with a majority in Assam. FOLLOW LIVE UPDATES HERE
PM Narendra Modi leading from UP's Varanasi
Sensex up by more than 600 points as early trends show a return to power of NDA Government, ANI reported.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi is leading in Wayanad, according to C-Voter. Meanwhile, Union Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore is leading in Jaipur Rural and BJP candidate Sunny Deol in Gurdaspur.
Counting of votes for Lok Sabha Elections2019 underway at Siri Fort complex.
Counting of votes for the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections began Thursday morning across the country. Election Commission officials said results are expected only by late evening.
60 crore votes locked in EVMs will be counted today as the world’s largest democratic exercise nears culmination. Counting is scheduled to begin at 8 am — here’s what will happen through the day. Read more here
The much-anticipated day is finally here. The counting of votes for the 17th Lok Sabha elections will begin at 8 am Thursday, bringing the curtains down on one of the bitterly-contested parliamentary polls post Independence. While trends should start trickling in soon after, a clear picture is expected to emerge only late afternoon. Follow LIVE updates here.
This was a general election where the BJP campaign exuded energy, the opinions of women mattered, and the Congress seemed to come up short in answering the tough questions. Read more here
Ram Vilas Paswan, Union minister and president of Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), an ally of the BJP-led NDA, speaks with The Indian Express on the General Election, the “mahamilawati” Opposition, and NDA allies a day before results are announced. Read more here
The Opposition’s clamour on EVM tampering is not new. In some elections in the past, parties that lost have sought to talk up apprehensions about the manipulation of electronic voting machines by the victor. Whoever wins and loses today must know the EVM did not do it. It is futile — and dangerous — to target the rules of the game. Read Express' editorial today.
Today's cartoon by E P Unny
With exit polls predicting the BJP’s return to power, the mood in the party has been upbeat. But the real test for the party will be Thursday when counting of votes for the next Lok Sabha is taken up. Because that will decide whether the party has retained its 2014 support base in the Hindi heartland while making inroads in states where it didn’t really have much to show in the last election when it won 282 seats. There are great expectations from the BJP’s new frontiers of West Bengal and Odisha where, by its own assessment, party candidates have done well. The party is keeping its fingers crossed in the key state of Uttar Pradesh where, even during the campaign, leaders assessed that there’s a fierce contest with the Mahagathbandhan of SP, BSP and RLD. Its UP count in the last election was a staggering 71 of the 80 seats in the fray. READ MORE
Believing that the BJP-led NDA will fall well short of the halfway mark of 272, the Congress, in consultation with many Opposition parties, has devised a three-stage plan which will be put into action for staking claim to government formation if the trends Thursday signal a shift in favour of the Opposition. Sources in Congress said three letters have been drafted by the legal team of the Congress, headed by Abhishek Manu Singhvi, to operationalise the plan. If the NDA appears to be falling well short of the simple majority mark, the Opposition plans to announce formation of a new alliance with a new name. It will be UPA plus since there will be many new constituents. READ MORE
If you notice, whenever the Congress loses, most of the decision-makers in the party go back to their day jobs — lawyers, economists, academics, authors or businessmen. Compare this with the political instincts built into the BJP’s establishment: Amit Shah, Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh and others have been through the rough and tumble of politics and have over the years cultivated an intuitive sense of what works on ground. With Rahul Gandhi floundering, the party may need to come up with an answer for its workers as to its plans for Priyanka Gandhi. The evidence is limited but she shows a political instinct that few with lineage (especially in their 4th generation) have. In fact, if you take a look at all the next generation inheritors of political legacies — Aditya Thackeray, Abhishek Banerjee, Lokesh Naidu, K T Rao, Pankaj Singh, Jayant Chaudhary, Nakul Nath or Supriya Sule — few have displayed the ability so far to fill their patriarch’s oversized shoes. Perhaps, only Jagan Reddy, and Akhilesh Yadav and maybe Tejashwi Yadav have fought battles within and mobilised their own rank and file. READ MORE
Hours before the results start pouring in, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee took to Rabindra Sangeet to cool off some steam. Banerjee who is known to be an avid instrument player released a video of her playing the piano to the tunes of Aaro aro dao praan. Mamata releasing the video said, “As counting day approaches, I pray for my motherland. This song is dedicated to Maa Mati Manush.” She has been widely popular for her artistic skills, where she can paint, write and play. Written by Noble laureate Rabindra Nath Tagore, the song is about calling to the god to a higher authority to bring peace and love.
WATCH VIDEO HERE
Amid allegations of EVM swapping ahead of the counting of votes, former Chief Election Commissioner O P Rawat on Wednesday came out in defence of the voter machines, asserting that they cannot be tampered with. “EVM security protocol is so strict whenever a strong room has to be opened, representatives of all political parties have to be there, machines are taken out in their presence, mock poll is also conducted,” Rawat told news agency ANI.
“When making EVM ready for the polling, a mock poll is again conducted at polling station where all the polling agents are asked to vote and then count, so all these arrangements ensure that EVMs can’t be tampered with,” he further said.
The most-watched contest in the district is, however, in the constituency of Baramati, the hometown of NCP chief and arguably the most prominent leader from Maharashtra currently in national politics, Sharad Pawar.
The BJP has made no secret of its intention of wresting the seat away from the Pawar family, which has won it for decades, with BJP chief Amit Shah himself leading the campaign for party candidate Kanchan Kul, wife of Rashtriya Samaj Paksha legislator Rahul Kul and daughter-in-law of former NCP legislator Ranjana Kul.
Even Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and other state ministers focussed on Baramati, where NCP leader and two-term MP Supriya Sule faces a tough fight to retain the seat for a third term. Sule had won in 2014 by only 70,000 votes — a low figure for a senior NCP leader and the daughter of Sharad Pawar — by defeating Mahadeo Jankar of RSP, an alliance partner of BJP.
A day before Lok Sabha results are announced, former minister and NCP leader Jaydutt Kshirsagar resigned as a legislator and joined the Shiv Sena in the presence of party president Uddhav Thackeray in Mumbai on Wednesday. Sena leaders said Kshirsagar has been in touch with the party leadership for the last few months. He had met Uddhav at Matoshree on April 6 to greet him on the occasion of Gudhi Padwa and Marathi new year.
Kshirsagar had been upset with the NCP leadership for ignoring him and giving importance to his arch rival Dhananjay Munde, Leader of Opposition in Legislative Council, said a leader. READ MORE
Eleven kg motichoor laddoos, 16.5 kg cream, 16.5 kg sugar, 22 kg flour and a team of 12 cooks — a night before the Lok Sabha results are declared, Bengali Pastry Shop is busy preparing 10 ‘laddoo cakes’, ordered by the Delhi BJP.
“There is one 8 kg cake with sponge, cream and laddoos, and the rest nine cakes are 5 kg each. These are round cakes with laddoos at the centre. We have to deliver them by 2 pm Thursday,” said Umesh Aggarwal, who owns the pastry shop in Bengali Market. The 54-year-old said that a half-kg cake sample was sent to Delhi BJP media co-incharge Neelkant Bakshi Tuesday and the shop received the order Wednesday evening. “The cake is priced at Rs 900-Rs 1,000 per kg,” said Aggarwal.
On Wednesday afternoon, though, laddoos are the least of everyone’s preoccupations at the BJP’s central office at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg. The swanky headquarters is being prepped for the results, and for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is expected to visit Thursday. On Wednesday, party president Amit Shah held a meeting at the headquarters. READ MORE
A day after RLSP chief Upendra Kushwaha warned the BJP of violent protests in case of attempts to tamper with EVMs in Bihar, a former RJD MLA and Independent candidate from Buxar in this Lok Sabha election, Ramchandra Yadav, on Wednesday urged people to be ready to fight and shed blood, if needed.
Yadav addressed the media in Kaimur, in western Bihar, carrying a licensed weapon.
Bihar’s Additional DGP Kundan Krishnan said: “We are raiding the premises of the former MLA. His arms licence could be cancelled and he might be arrested.” READ MORE
"The biggest thing in this election was that even a poor person in a village thought about the nation, national unity and integrity, and found Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the symbol (of those ideas). Hence, he voted for the local candidate in the name of Modi. Modi remained at the centre of this election," says Union minister and president of Lok Janshakti Party Ram Vilas Paswan.
In addition to 930 polling booths in Gujarat, where mandatory counting of VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail) slips will take place on Thursday, the Election Commission has also decided to count the slips in 15 other polling stations, where the presiding officer “forgot” to erase the mock-poll data from Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), official sources said. READ MORE
The Election Commission of India (ECI) specifies that the counting of votes is to be done by the Returning Officer (RO), who is an officer or a local authority nominated by the Commission for each constituency. In most cases the RO is the District Magistrate of the concerned district. Assistant Returning Officers too, are legally empowered to supervise the counting, and they take over especially if the RO has been assigned more than one constituency. READ MORE
ANI reported that unidentified assailants fired upon Manoj Jena — Congress candidate from Odisha's Aska Assembly seat in Berhampur on Wednesday.
Ahead of the poll counting day for Lok Sabha elections, AR Ajaykumar, Returning Officer, Wayanad, gave a report of the security arrangements at the polling stations in the constituency from where Congress chief Rahul Gandhi is contesting.
The Bollywood actor was in news recently for tweeting a controversial meme on Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, He had issued an apology on Twitter on Tuesday. The PM Narendra Modi actor on Monday tweeted a collage of three photos of Aishwarya Rai with Salman Khan, himself and Aishwarya’s husband Abhishek Bachchan and daughter Aaradhya.
The Election Commission Wednesday rejected the demand of 22 political parties to count paper trail machine slips before the counting of votes polled in electronic voting machines (EVMs), saying it has not been found "feasible", reports PTI.
A day after a delegation met the EC, it issued a statement, saying after two rounds of in-depth discussions Wednesday and Thursday,"it has neither been found possible nor feasible to accede to this demand" in the overall context and especially in view of a Supreme Court judgment of April 8 which had directed the poll panel that the random selection of VVPATs will be subject to the process of slip verification as per the EVM guideline in force.
The guideline broadly states that the slip count should be held at the end of counting of votes polled in EVMs.
Bhubaneswar: Sweets being prepared ahead of Lok Sabha Elections 2019 results tomorrow. "Have received orders for ladoos, rasgullas and kaju barfi from political parties. Have received orders for 2,000 ladoos. Parties hopeful of winning have already placed orders," a shop owner was quoted as saying by ANI.
A CRPF jawan B Satish Kumar, deployed at a strong room in Kondagaon, Chhattisgarh died of a heart attack earlier this evening, news agency ANI reported. Counting of votes for all 11 Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh will be held at 27 centres in the state on Thursday amid tight security.
Express Photo by Neeraj Priyadarshi
"In fact when making EVM ready for the polling, a mock poll is again conducted at the polling station where all the polling agents are asked to vote & then count, so all these arrangements ensure that EVMs can't be tampered with," former CEC OP Rawat told ANI. Rawat's remarks come amid the ongoing row over EVM tamperings.
Union Minister and BJP ally Ram Vilas Paswan Wednesday dubbed the opposition "sore losers" and claimed that their "desperation" over the VVPAT issue was an indication of their defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, reports PTI.
Leaders of 22 opposition parties met the Election Commission on Tuesday ahead of the Lok Sabha election results and demanded verification of VVPAT slips of randomly-selected polling stations before the counting of votes begins Thursday. The EC on Wednesday rejected the demand.
"I have been saying for many months now that when the opposition heads towards defeat it starts complaining about EVM. Those opposing EVMs want to drag India back to the time when money and muscle power decided elections. The Supreme Court has heard the issue four times already. They are now concocting stories in the face of impending defeat. They are just sore losers," he said.
Apart from Paswan, senior BJP leader Ram Madhav also termed the Opposition's demand for verification of VVPAT slips as excuses in te face of defeat. "They (Congress) are looking for excuses for their impending defeat tomorrow, they have blamed EC, now they are blaming EVMs, tomorrow they'll start blaming voters also," he was quoted as saying by ANI.
Ahead of the counting of votes tomorrow, Jaydutt Kshirsagar, NCP leader and former Maharashtra Minister, joins Shiv Sena in presence of party chief Uddhav Thackeray.
Bangalore Central candidate from Congress Arshad Rizwan has complained to the party general secretary alleging Karnataka Congress MLA Roshan Baig of "vehemently" working against him and the party. "Mr. Roshan Baig's affinitity towards the BJP is not new," reads the letter written by Rizwan.