Breaking News Live Updates: Hello and welcome to the Live blog brought to you by ABP Live. Please follow this space and keep refreshing the page for all the latest updates from India and around the world.

AAP To Launch Delhi Poll Campaign With Sisodia’s Foot March Today

The Aam Aadmi Party will begin its poll campaign for the Delhi Assembly elections with senior leader Manish Sisodia’s foot march to reach out to voters in all 70 constituencies, senior party leader Sandeep Pathak told news agency PTI on Monday.

The Delhi Assembly elections are likely to be held early next year.

Former Delhi deputy chief minister Sisodia was released from Tihar jail on Friday.

He held a meeting with AAP MLAs on Monday that was also attended by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s wife Sunita.

Sisodia had also held a meeting with senior party leaders on Sunday and the AAP councillors on Tuesday.

Sisodia stated that the preparations for the Delhi Assembly polls were discussed in the Monday meeting.

“In the history of independent India, the AAP is the first party which is being attacked repeatedly. They have even put the top leader of the party in jail. The BJP people must also be thinking that for the first time after freedom fighters such people have come who are neither breaking nor bowing down,” he said.

Nominations Filing For Lone Vacant Rajya Sabha Seat In MP To Begin On Wednesday

Madhya Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Anupam Rajan said that the nominations for election to lone vacant Rajya Sabha seat from the state will open on Wednesday. 

“The last date for filing of nominations is August 21 and papers will be scrutinised on August 22. The last date for withdrawal of the candidature is August 26,” he said.

“Polling will be held on September 3 from 9 am to 4 pm and the result will be declared the same day,” Rajan added.

The Rajya Sabha seat fell vacant after Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia won the Lok Sabha polls from Guna constituency.

Rajya Sabha members are elected by MLAs of a legislative assembly who cast their vote in proportional representation with the single transferable vote (STV) system.

With BJP’s strength in the MP assembly, its party candidate can win comfortably, if voting takes place. So far the BJP has not declared its Rajya Sabha nominee from MP.

In the 230-member House, BJP has 163 MLAs, Congress 64, and Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP) 1.