India

Mumbai, May 23 (PTI) MNS chief Raj Thackeray, who had vociferously campaigned against the BJP, Thursday termed the Lok Sabha poll trends suggesting a landslide victory for the ruling party as "beyond rationale" and "incomprehensible".

"Beyond rationale! #Verdict2019," the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief tweeted.

In another post on the micro-blogging site, he said the results were "anakalniya" (incomprehensible).

Chennai, May 23 (PTI) Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K S Alagiri Thursday said while Prime Minister Narendra Modi has won polls, "India has lost."

Congress party accepted the people's verdict, he said adding a victory for a "flawed ideology," was, however, a cause for concern.

NEW DELHI (AP) — The man in the saffron robe sat cross-legged with his eyes closed, back to the wall of a cave framed by the Himalayas.

This was India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s latest production, traveling to a remote mountain temple with a preferred TV news crew to show the world India’s leader meditating days before the end of the country’s marathon general elections. As official results Thursday showed Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party leading in the race for the lower house of Parliament, the party already declared victory.

New Delhi, May 22; PTI/GANASHAKTI: CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Wednesday said the Election Commission's rejection of the Opposition demand to first count the VVPAT slips went against the "spirit" of a Supreme Court order on the devices.

Yechury's reaction comes after the commission is learnt to have stuck to its plan to count the voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips in the end and not in the beginning as demanded by the Opposition.

New Delhi, May 22; GANASHAKTI: The Election Commission is learnt to have stuck to its plan of counting the paper trail machines slips at the end of counts and not in the beginning as demanded by opposition parties.

The Commission is also learnt to have decided to count postal ballots simultaneously with Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) count due to the "sheer size" of the ballots received this time from service voters.

Till now, the postal ballots were counted in the beginning followed by votes polled in voting machines.

Hyderabad, May 23 (PTI) The CPI Thursday said BJP's poll narrative centred on nationalism worked for the party in a big way in the Lok Sabha elections.

"I think it looks like nationalism worked for them in northern states and Karnataka," CPI General Secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy told PTI commenting on the Lok Sabha poll outcome.

"Nationalism worked (for the BJP)... points raised by opposition unemployment, price rise, and ommissions and commissions of the BJP did not stand before the nationalism, particularly northern states," he said.

New Delhi, May 22 (PTI) Decisions taken by Rahul Gandhi led to divisions within the opposition, CPI national secretary Atul Kumar Anjaan said Thursday and asserted that the policies of the Congress scion opened the doors for Narendra Modi's victory.

Riding on a massive Modi wave sweeping through most parts of India, the BJP was set to return to power Thursday as it led in 292 seats while the Congress trailed far behind with 50, according to trends released by the Election Commission for all 542 seats that went to polls.

Mumbai, May 23 (PTI) Congress' Mumbai-North Lok Sabha seat candidate Urmila Matondkar on Thursday alleged that there was a mismatch in signatures on an electronic voting machine (EVM) form.

The actor, who was trailing against BJP's Gopal Shetty by over 1,45,991 votes, said a complaint was filed with the Election Commission in this connection.

"On the form of EVM 17C from Magathane, the signatures and the machine numbers are different. A complaint has been filed with the Election Commission," she said in a tweet.

Jaipur, May 23 (PTI) A woman in her 20's was allegedly tortured and raped by five persons including a doctor and a suspended police constable in the city, police said Thursday.

The accused left the woman in a semi-naked position on the Agra road here on Wednesday, they said.

The woman alleged that she was tortured and gang-raped on Tuesday night, they added.

Chennai, May 23 (PTI) The ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu seemed to be on course to win a comfortable number of seats from the 22 Assembly segments where bypolls were held, signalling that K Palaniswami can breathe easy and continue in the saddle for another two years.

The party was leading in 10 of the 22 seats where polling was held in two phases-- on April 18 and May 19, according to the latest Election Commission data.