2004 Indian General Elections
General elections were held in India in four phases between 20 April and 10 May 2004. Over 670 million people were eligible to vote, electing 543 members of the 14th Lok Sabha. Seven states also held assembly elections to elect state governments. They were the first elections fully carried out with electronic voting machines. On 13 May the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the lead party of the National Democratic Alliance conceded defeat. The Indian National Congress, which had governed India for all but five years from independence until 1996, returned to power after a record eight years out of office. It was able to put together a comfortable majority of more than 335 members out of 543 with the help of its allies. The 335 members included both the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, the governing coalition formed after the election, as well as external support from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party (SP), Kerala Congress (KC) and the Left Front. Aft ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lok Sabha
The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-past-the-post system to represent their respective constituencies, and they hold their seats for five years or until the body is dissolved by the President on the advice of the council of ministers. The house meets in the Lok Sabha Chambers of the Sansad Bhavan, New Delhi. The maximum membership of the House allotted by the Constitution of India is 552 (Initially, in 1950, it was 500). Currently, the house has 543 seats which are made up by the election of up to 543 elected members and at a maximum. Between 1952 and 2020, 2 additional members of the Anglo-Indian community were also nominated by the President of India on the advice of Government of India, which was abolished in January 2020 by the 104th Constitutional Amendment Act, 2019. The ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bahujan Samaj Party
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is a national level political party in India that was formed to represent Bahujans (literally means "community in majority"), referring to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes (OBC), along with religious minorities. According to Kanshi Ram, when he founded the party in 1984, the Bahujans comprised 85 percent of India's population, but were divided into 6,000 different castes. The party claims to be inspired by the philosophy of Gautama Buddha, B. R. Ambedkar, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Narayana Guru, Periyar E. V. Ramasamy and Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj. Kanshi Ram named his protégée, Mayawati, as his successor in 2001. The BSP has its main base in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh where it was the second-largest party in the 2019 Indian general election with 19.3% of votes and third-largest in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly election with 12.88% of votes. Its election symbol is an elephant which is the sam ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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List Of Political Parties In India
India has a multi-party system. The Election Commission of India (ECI) accords recognition to the national level and the state level political parties based upon objective criteria. A recognised political party enjoys privileges like a reserved party symbol, free broadcast time on state-run television and radio, consultation in the setting of election dates, and giving input in setting electoral rules and regulations. Other political parties that wish to contest local, state or national elections are required to be registered by the Election Commission of India. Registered Parties are upgraded as recognised National Party or State Party by the ECI if they meet the relevant criteria after a Lok Sabha or State legislative assemblies of India, State legislative assembly election. The Recognised Party status is reviewed periodically by the ECI. Before the amendment in 2016 (came into force with effect from 1 January 2014), if a political party failed to fulfill the criteria in the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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India Today
''India Today'' is a weekly Indian English-language news magazine published by Living Media India Limited. It is the most widely circulated magazine in India, with a readership of close to 8 million. In 2014, ''India Today'' launched a new online opinion-orientated site called the ''DailyO''. History ''India Today'' was established in 1975 by Vidya Vilas Purie (owner of Thompson Press), with his daughter Madhu Trehan as its editor and his son Aroon Purie as its publisher.Bhandare, Namita"70's: The decade of innocence".''Hindustan Times''. Retrieved 29 July 2012. At present, ''India Today'' is also published in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S .... The India Today news channel was launched on 22 May 2015. In October 2017, Aroon P ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Electronic Voting
Electronic voting (also known as e-voting) is voting that uses electronic means to either aid or take care of casting and counting ballots. Depending on the particular implementation, e-voting may use standalone ''electronic voting machines'' (also called EVM) or computers connected to the Internet (online voting). It may encompass a range of Internet services, from basic transmission of tabulated results to full-function online voting through common connectable household devices. The degree of automation may be limited to marking a paper ballot, or may be a comprehensive system of vote input, vote recording, data encryption and transmission to servers, and consolidation and tabulation of election results. A worthy e-voting system must perform most of these tasks while complying with a set of standards established by regulatory bodies, and must also be capable to deal successfully with strong requirements associated with security, accuracy, integrity, swiftness, privacy, audita ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Election Commission Of India
The Election Commission of India (ECI) is a constitutional body. It was established by the Constitution of India to conduct and regulate elections in the country. Article 324 of the Constitution provides that the power of superintendence, direction, and control of elections to parliament, state legislatures, the office of the president of India, and the office of vice-president of India shall be vested in the election commission. Thus, the Election Commission is an all-India body in the sense that it is common to both the Central government and the state governments. The body administers elections to the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, State Legislative Assemblies, State Legislative Councils and the offices of the President and Vice President of the country. The Election Commission operates under the authority of Constitution per ''Article 324'', and subsequently enacted Representation of the People Act. The commission has the powers under the Constitution, to act in an appropriate ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Constitution Of India
The Constitution of India (IAST: ) is the supreme law of India. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures, powers, and duties of government institutions and sets out fundamental rights, directive principles, and the duties of citizens. It is the longest written national constitution in the world. It imparts constitutional supremacy (not parliamentary supremacy, since it was created by a constituent assembly rather than Parliament) and was adopted by its people with a declaration in its preamble. Parliament cannot override the constitution. It was adopted by the Constituent Assembly of India on 26 November 1949 and became effective on 26 January 1950. The constitution replaced the Government of India Act 1935 as the country's fundamental governing document, and the Dominion of India became the Republic of India. To ensure constitutional autochthony, its framers repealed prior acts of the British parliament in A ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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13th Lok Sabha
The 13th Lok Sabha (10 October 1999 – 6 February 2004) is the thirteenth session of the Lok Sabha (House of the People, or lower house in the Parliament of India). It was convened after 1999 Indian general election held during September–October 1999. This majority group in the Lok Sabha during this period was the National Democratic Alliance, a nationalist group led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, which won 270 seats, 16 more than 12th Lok Sabha. The NDA, under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee completed its term until the next general elections of May 2004 for the next 14th Lok Sabha. This was the first non-INC government to complete the full term. Four sitting members from Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of Indian Parliament, were elected to 13th Lok Sabha after the 1999 Indian general election. Important members * Speaker: ** G. M. C. Balayogi from 22 October 1999 to 3 March 2002 ** Manohar Joshi from 10 May 2002 to 2 June 2004 * Deputy Speaker: ** P M Sayeed fro ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Two-party System
A two-party system is a political party system in which two major political parties consistently dominate the political landscape. At any point in time, one of the two parties typically holds a majority in the legislature and is usually referred to as the ''majority'' or ''governing party'' while the other is the ''minority'' or ''opposition party''. Around the world, the term has different meanings. For example, in the United States, the Bahamas, Jamaica, United Kingdom and Zimbabwe, the sense of ''two-party system'' describes an arrangement in which all or nearly all elected officials belong to either of the two major parties, and third parties rarely win any seats in the legislature. In such arrangements, two-party systems are thought to result from several factors, like "winner takes all" or "first past the post" election systems.Regis PublishingThe US System: Winner Takes All Accessed August 12, 2013, "...Winner-take-all rules trigger a cycle that leads to and strengthen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Economic Liberalisation In India
The economic liberalisation in India refers to the opening of the country's economy to the world with the goal of making the economy more market and service-oriented, thus expanding the role of private and foreign investment. Indian economic liberalisation was part of a general pattern of economic liberalisation occurring across the world in the late 20th century. Although some attempts at liberalisation were made in 1966 and the early 1980s, a more thorough liberalisation was initiated in 1991. The reform was prompted by a balance of payments crisis that had led to a severe recession and also as per structural adjustment programs for taking loans from IMF and World Bank. Through reform, India overcame its worst economic crisis in the remarkably short period of two years. Specific changes included reducing import tariffs, deregulating markets, and reducing taxes, which led to an increase in foreign investment and high economic growth in the 1990s and 2000s. From 1992 to 20 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Finance Minister Of India
The Minister of Finance (Vitta Mantrī ) (or simply, the Finance Minister, short form FM) is the head of the Ministry of Finance of the Government of India. One of the senior offices of the Union Cabinet, the finance minister is responsible for the fiscal policy of the government. A key duty of the Finance Minister is to present the annual Union Budget in Parliament, detailing the government's plan for taxation and spending in the coming financial year. Through the Budget, the finance minister also outlines allocations to all the ministries and departments. The Minister is assisted by the Minister of State for Finance and the junior Deputy Minister of Finance. There have been a number of Ministers of Finance that went on to become the Prime Minister; Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Vishwanath Pratap Singh and Manmohan Singh and also to serve as the President; R.Venkataraman and Pranab Mukherjee. Several Prime Ministers have also gone on to hold the position of Minister of Finance. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Congress President
The President of the Indian National Congress is the chief executive of the Indian National Congress (INC), one of the principal political parties in India. Constitutionally, the president is elected by an electoral college composed of members drawn from the Pradesh Congress Committees and members of the All India Congress Committee (AICC). In the event of any emergency because of any cause such as the death or resignation of the president elected as above, the most senior General Secretary discharges the routine functions of the president until the Working Committee appoints a provisional president pending the election of a regular president by the AICC. The president of the party has effectively been the party's national leader, head of the party's organisation, head of the Working Committee, the chief spokesman, and all chief Congress committees. After the party's foundation in December 1885, Wyomesh Chandra Banerjee became its first president. From 1885 to 1933, the preside ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |