How Candidates File Nominations
Between the notification and the last date, candidates file papers, declare their assets and criminal cases, and survive scrutiny. Many do not.
Election Explainers
How Election Expenditure Limits Work
Candidates work to a legal spending ceiling. Parties do not, and that gap explains most arguments about election finance.
What Is a By-Election?
A by-election fills a single seat that fell vacant mid-term. The winner serves only the remainder of the original term.
How an Election Result Is Challenged
A declared result cannot be reopened by the Election Commission. The only route is an election petition, and the rules are narrow.
What Are EVMs and VVPAT?
The EVM records your vote. The VVPAT prints a slip so you can see it was recorded correctly. Here is how the two work together.
What Is the Anti-Defection Law?
The Tenth Schedule decides when an elected member loses their seat for switching sides, and it shapes how defections happen.
How Votes Are Counted in India
Counting day follows a fixed sequence: postal ballots, then EVM rounds, then mandatory VVPAT verification before the result is declared.
What Is a Hung Assembly?
No party has a majority. What happens next is governed more by convention than by rules, and the floor test settles it.
What Is NOTA and What Does It Actually Do?
NOTA lets you reject every candidate on the ballot. What it does not do is change who wins, and that distinction matters.
How Rajya Sabha Members Are Elected
They are MPs, but you never see them on your ballot. Your MLA votes for them, by single transferable vote, on an open ballot.
MLA vs MP: What Is the Difference?
Both are elected representatives, but they sit in different houses, make different laws, and answer for very different things.
How Political Parties Are Registered and Recognised
Every party registers. Only a few are recognised, and only the recognised ones get a reserved symbol. That distinction decides a lot.