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In a video message, Modi spoke about how the voters in the previous phases of polling had exercised their franchise in large numbers and and urged voters in the 41 constituencies voting on Monday to do the same.

District Magistrate and Returning Officer Pranjal Yadav told reporters that the FIR had been filed against Rai on the instructions of the Election Commission.

Varanasi in focus as millions turn up for last phase of parliamentary elections.

The Obama administration started mending fences in February, when, for the first time in Modi’s decade-long tenure as the top official in Gujarat state, the US ambassador met with him.

C-Voter predicts 289 seats for the National Democratic Alliance headed by the BJP, with just 101 seats for the alliance led by the Congress party.

All eyes were on Varanasi, where Aam Aadmi Party's Arvind Kejriwal challenged BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

Long queues were seen at most of the 71,254 polling stations in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, with some people in Varanasi—which saw heavy balloting—complaining that they had been waiting for four hours to vote.

Today is the last day of polling in the nine-phase elections to the Lok Sabha.

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) president K Chandrasekhar Rao has not only claimed victory for his party in Telangana with absolute majority, but has also forecast that the YSR Congress (YSRC) led by Y S Jaganmohan Reddy would sweep the elections in Seemandhra.