-Livemint.com The BJP enjoyed greater support among upper caste-dominated affluent districts in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections than in other districts of the country One of the notable features of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s historic victory in 2014 was its ability to attract support across social groups, cutting across traditional divides of caste and class. Yet, support for the party was much greater among certain demographic groups than among others, a Mint...

-The Hindu Voters need not know the funding source of parties, A-G tells court New Delhi: Voters do not need to know from where political parties get their funds, the government argued in the Supreme Court on Thursday. The court cannot “kill” the electoral bonds scheme for the sake of transparency, Attorney General K.K. Venugopal said. He argued that the bond was an experiment to eradicate black money and the court should not...

-The Hindu Earlier, under the ECI guideline 16.6, only the VVPAT slips from one EVM in every Assembly segment/constituency was subjected to physical verification. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday increased voter verified paper audit trial (VVPAT) verification to five random Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) in each Assembly segment/constituency. In case of general elections, VVPAT slips of five EVMs in each Assembly segment of a Parliamentary Constituency would be subject to physical...

-The Hindu DECIsion to stop the scheme for now was based on opinion that unlike other schemes announced in the budget, this scheme entails cash transfer to beneficiaries, “which could sway them weeks before polling.” Bengaluru: The farm loan waiver scheme of the Janata Dal (Secular)-Congress coalition government has been stalled temporarily by the Election Commission of India after the model code of conduct for the Lok Sabha election came into force. The...

-The Hindu SC wants list of names included in Assam rolls from 2017 The Election Commission of India (ECI) on Tuesday assured the Supreme Court that names have not been deleted from the Assam electoral roll on the basis of their exclusion from the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC), which was published in July last year. However, a Bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi was not satisfied. “But a question looms large...