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Congress president Rahul Gandhi will contest from Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala besides his traditional stronghold of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh as the former is 'geographically important'. Unfazed by Gandhi's decision to contest from Kerala's Wayanad seat as well in the Lok Sabha elections, voters in Amethi say they will support "the son" of their "VIP constituency". Amethi goes to polls on May 6. Read more.
Launching a scathing attack on Rahul Gandhi for picking Wayanad as his second seat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said that Congress is now scared of contesting from areas dominated by majority population. BJP president Amit Shah Monday announced that Thushar Vellappally of Bharat Dharma Jana Sena, an ally of the saffron party in Kerala, will be the ruling NDA's candidate against Congress chief Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad. Read more.
A day after Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s candidacy from Wayanad was confirmed, ‘Deshabhimani’, the Malayalam mouthpiece of the ruling CPI(M), put up an editorial in which he was addressed as ‘Pappu’, an oft-repeated mock-name of the Gandhi scion. Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayana had earlier said that Gandhi's fight in Kerala is not against the BJP but the Left. Read more.
Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehboob Mufti’s People Democratic Party on Monday welcomed prominent tribal activist and advocate, Talib Hussain into the party. Hussain was also at the forefront of the Kathua rape and murder case as a key witness, in which an eight-year-old girl from a minority nomadic community was abducted and gang-raped in January 2018. Read more.
BJP candidate for Bengaluru South Tejasvi Surya got a court order in his favour on Friday, restraining the media from publishing anything false, malicious and derogatory against him. The order comes after he filed an injunction suit in the city civil court in Bengaluru. Read more.Read all stories related to Lok sabha Polls 2019 only on News18.com's LIVE Election tracker.
Facebook Inc said on Monday it was removing 687 pages and accounts linked to the Congress, just days before voting begins in a general election, because of "coordinated inauthentic behaviour" on the social media platform. Read more.
At least 70,000 declared illegal migrants in Assam have vanished before they could be deported back. The Assam government, in its affidavit to the Supreme Court, has admitted that 70,000 individuals who were declared foreigners by the tribunal are untraceable now. Read more.
Ahead of the 2019 general elections, over 100 members of the film fraternity— most of them Independent filmmakers— have appealed to the people of India to vote out the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from power. Among the 124 campaigning signatories are veteran documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan and S Durga director Sanal Sassidharan, who started the online movement along with filmmaker Jiju Antony.Read more.
Agree or Disagree
Ending a week-long suspense and speculation, Congress president Rahul Gandhi has decided to contest from Kerala’s Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency apart from the Gandhi family’s traditional bastion of Amethi. The move, calculated to re-energise the grand old party in the south that sends 130 seats to the lower House, has undoubtedly cheered the Congress cadre in Kerala. But is Congress the only one benefiting with Gandhi's entry in Wayanad? Kay Benedict writes how the move could also prove to be good news for BJP. Read more.
Art of the Day
Building up suspense in the run-up to any blockbuster election are the action-packed trailers of netas lobbying and posturing for tickets. 2019 is proving to be no different. With the first phase of polling just days away, the Congress has lost one MP and 21 MLAs to the cycle of defections, while the BJP lost five MPs and 12 MLAs. Read more.
