Lok Sabha Election Results 2024: First session of 18th Lok Sabha likely to commence around June 15, Sources

Congress and BJP were involved in a high-wattage face-off on Thursday with Rahul Gandhi demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the “role” of PM Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman into what he claimed was a “Rs 30 lakh crore stock market scam” allegedly engineered through “fake” exit polls. BJP’s Piyush Goyal hit back by alleging that the charge was a conspiracy to mislead investors.

Nearly 65.8% of the country's 97.6 crore electorate came out to vote in the just-concluded general election, though this was 1.6 percentage points less than the 67.1% overall turnout, excluding the postal ballots, recorded in the 2019 edition. Women beat men in terms of turnouts in 19 of the 36 states and Union Territories (UTs), but at the national level, men with a polling percentage of 65.8% were a tad ahead of women with 65.7%.

TDP president and chief minister in waiting N Chandrababu Naidu likely to release a white paper on financial situation of Andhra Pradesh soon after assuming office, highlighting the state’s massive debt burden, the dire fiscal situation, poor infrastructure and the weak investment, both by govt and the private sector.

Unless the Left Front in Kerala is willing to learn from the repeated shock therapy administered by people, it risks suffering the same fate as the Left parties in West Bengal and Tripura, said Geevarghese Mar Coorilos, the metropolitan of Malankara Jacobite Syrian Church.

Vishal Patil who has been elected as independent MP from Sangli in Maharashtra on Thursday met the Congress brass and extended his support to the party. The development is significant as Congress that was stuck at 99 MPs can claim support of 100 members, even if technically an independent cannot join a political party.

A day after Maharashtra deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis offered to resign assuming moral responsibility for BJP’s electoral defeat in the state, RSS office-bearers came calling at his Nagpur residence, where a closed-door meeting continued for nearly two hours.

Top Sangh sources confirmed the huddle at the deputy CM’s residence Thursday but called it a courtesy visit.

Samajwadi Party winning 37, BJP 33, Congress 6 and BSP 0 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh not just speaks volume about the dynamism and complexities that this politically largest state is known for, but also explains the inaccuracy in the assessment of the ground situation by many pollsters, and functionaries of different political parties.