Former Bihar chief minister Lalu Yadav expressed reservations on Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement, a Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) member has quit the party in protest against the party supremo’s comment.

Asif Mohammad Khan, currently RJD’s only member of Delhi’s Legislative Assembly, said he does not agree with Yadav’s comment against Hazare and has therefore decided to resign from the party.

Khan had won the South Delhi-located seat of Okhla in the 2008 Delhi assembly elections.

Yadav had criticised Anna saying Parliament is supreme and neither Anna nor anyone from the civil society can pass instructions to Parliamentarians.

The Election Commission on Monday termed as a “ticklish affair” the demand for the right to reject candidates in elections.

“We have not applied our mind to it seriously, just heard about it here and there. It is going to be a ticklish affair,” Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi said.

He said the proposed right of people to reject candidates required a “bit of debate” because a situation of majority of the people rejecting all candidates also has to be considered.

“What will happen if majority of people reject all candidates? We will go for another poll? As it is, you have to balance it with the fact that people have election fatigue. How many elections shall we have?” he asked.

Quraishi said the poll authority would rather give voter education and ask them to come out in large numbers to choose a good candidate.

He said the right to recall candidates has not been on the agenda of the Commission at all.

After eight consecutive victories, leftists have lost the elections to the Jawaharlal Nehru staff association. The non-Left United Sangharsh Morcha swept the polls with the biggest margin on Thursday.

Diwan Ram of USM defeated Vishnu Dutt of the Karmachari Democratic Front (KDF) to become the president. Ram polled 779 votes against Dutt’s 332, the biggest margin in the staff elections so far. There are around 3,500 non-officer, non-teaching staff members in the university, of which only 1,400 are permanent employees who are eligible to vote in the election to one of the oldest associations of JNU.

“The victory is significant. We’ve won all the five posts, and even among the cadre representative polls, we’ve won 12 of the 16 posts. Since inception, JNUSA has been a stronghold of KDF, which espouses left ideologies. For the past eight years, KDF has been winning the elections,” said Diwan.

The recent assembly elections in five states in India did give the country two more women chief ministers but the gross representation of women in these assemblies is a dismal nine percent.

According to a poll result analysis by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), women legislators comprise just 72 of the 824 newly elected legislators in the five new assemblies of Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal.

This is when all the major parties in these polls have been supporting the Women’s Reservation Bill calling for 33 percent reservation in the assemblies and parliament. The bill, which has been passed by the Rajya Sabha, is pending in the Lok Sabha.

While J. Jayalalithaa is the new chief minister of Tamil Nadu, Mamata Banerjee is to be sworn in the new chief minister of West Bengal .

Overall, the total number of women MLAs (legislators) in these five assemblies has reduced from 80 in 2006 to 72 in 2011.

Among the five assemblies, West Bengal has the highest number of women members – 34 (12 percent) of the 294-member assembly. It is followed by Assam with 14 (11 percent) women members in the 126-member house, Tamil Nadu with 17 (seven percent) in the 234-member assembly, and Kerala with only seven (five percent) women legislators out of 140.

Puducherry has no women elected to its 30 member assembly.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP and scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family Varun Gandhi is all set to tie the nuptial knot this year and among the guests to be invited are his aunt Sonia Gandhi and cousin Rahul Gandhi.

The 30-year-old BJP national secretary and fiery orator will marry a Bengali girl, Yamini Roy, a fashion designer.

‘Varun will get married to Yamini this year itself. All members of the Gandhi family including Sonia Gandhi and Rahul will be invited to attend the marriage function,’ Maneka Gandhi told mediapersons in Uttar Pradesh’s Badaun town.

If Rahul and his mother attend the function, it will bring together the estranged daughters-in-law – Sonia and Maneka – of the Nehru-Gandhi clan after many years of cold war.

The estranged daughter-in-law of the Gandhi family, Maneka had not attended Priyanka Gandhi’s marriage in 1997. But Varun who was a teenager then, was present at his cousin’s wedding.

Varun’s wife-to-be is originally from Shantiniketan and has graduated from Delhi’s St Stephen’s College. She pursued a fashion designing course at a university in France.

Elections to the Delhi University Students’ Union will take place on September 3. The last date of receipt of nomination papers is August 24 and the date of display of final list of candidates is August 26.

The Congress Thursday lost two seats in the Delhi by-elections with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) winning one seat each.

While BJP’s candidate Pardymn Rajput defeated Congress’ Tilotma Chaudhary in Dwarka, RJD’s Asif Mohhamed Khan trumped the Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Braham Singh in Okhla.

Elections in Dwarka were held on Sep 10, and in Okhla on Sep 15.

In Dwarka, BJP’s Parduymn Rajput defeated his Congress rival Tilotma Choudhary by a margin of 11,365 votes while in Okhla, RJD’s Asif Mohd Khan pipped BSP’s Brahm Singh by 5,007 votes.

In the counting for the bypoll held on September 15, Asif Mohammad Khan polled 23,394 defeating Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Bramha Singh by more than 5000 votes. Congress candidate Farhad Suri came third in the Muslim-dominated constituency with 17,804 votes.

“When a judicial probe is ordered into the September 19, 2008 Batla House encounter I will withdraw from the election for the Okhla seat,” announced Khan while kickstarting the campaign one month ago. All through the campaigns he reiterated the demand for a judicial probe into the encounter in which two Azamgarh youth, suspected as terrorists, were gunned down.

In the last assembly poll in December 2008 he strongly raised the issue and people responded by giving him 25000 votes, just 500 behind the sitting Congress MLA Parwez Hashmi whose ascension to the Rajya Sabha necessitated this bypoll. Khan and his wife had lost municipal council elections some months ago.

Polling in the Assembly bypoll for the Okhla constituency began on a low turn out. And it stayed that way till the end. While the first hour saw a 6.61-per cent turnout, it reached 24.39 per cent by afternoon, before settling at 35.8 per cent by 5 pm when polling drew to a close.

Candidates attributed the low turnout in the predominantly Muslim-dominant areas due to the Ramzan.

Gurjjar-dominated areas of Madanpur Khadar and Aligaon recorded about 50 per cent polling in most booths.

By-election to Dwarka and Okhla assembly constituencies in the national capital will be be held respectively on  September 10 and September 15.
The two segments fell vacant after their respective MLAs Mahabal Mishra (Dwarka) and Parvez Hashmi (Okhla) were elected to the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha recently.

Candidates List for Dwarka Assembly bypolls

Tilotma Chaudhary-Indian National Congress
Pardumn Rajput-Bharatiya Janata Party
Hari Prakash-Bahujan ekta party(R)
Naresh Chander Pal-Bharatiya Sampuran Krantikari party
Om Prakash Indora-Rashtriya Janadhikar Party
Prof Ram Narayan Singh-Jammu & Kashmir National Panthers Party
Ramesh Kumar Hotla-Independant
Subhash Kumar Chaudhary-Independant
Mukesh Kumar Tanwar-Independant
Madan Mohan-Independant
Mordhwaj Rai-Independant
Gulfan-Independant
Anil Singh-Independant

Candidates List for Okhla Assembly bypolls

Farhad Suri-Indian National Congress
Mohd Irfan Ahmad-Bharatiya Janata Party
Asif Mohd Khan-Rashtriya JANATA Dal
Braham Singh-Bahujan samaj Party
Rambir Singh Bidhuri-Nationalist Congress Party
Sanjay-Rashtriya Janadhikar Party
Sunita Choudhary-Awami Party
Jamaluddin-Independant
Ilyas Khan-Independant
Mohammad Ayub-Independant
Waism Ahmad Ghazi-Independant

The Delhi University Students’ Union election would be held on September 4 between 8.30 am and 12.30 pm for day classes, and 3 to 7 pm for evening classes. The last date for filling of nominations is August 25. On the same day, there will be scrutiny of nomination papers and the deadline for the withdrawal of nominations would be 12 noon on August 27.

The DU Vice-Chancellor has appointed Gurmeet Singh and J M Khurana of the Department of Chemistry as the chief election officer and the chief returning officer respectively. Nomination papers of candidates running for posts of DUSU office bearers must be submitted at the office of the Chief Election Officer.

The counting will be done on the following day but the time and venue for it will be announced later.