Samajwadi Party candidate Afzal Ansari is the incumbent MP and slain don Mukhtar Ansari's elder brother. Afzal had won the 2019 election on a BSP ticket after defeating the BJP's Manoj Sinha, now the J&K lieutenant governor.
The Lok Sabha Secretariat on Thursday revoked the disqualification of Bahujan Samaj Party leader Afzal Ansari as a member of the Lower House after the Supreme Court conditionally suspended his conviction in a Gangsters Act case.
While Justice Kant and Bhuyan delivered the majority verdict, Justice Datta dismissed Ansari's appeal against the Allahabad high court order.
The Allahabad High Court has quashed the conviction of Abbas Ansari, son of Mukhtar Ansari, in a 2022 hate speech case, potentially restoring his assembly membership.
An NDRF team is deployed to rescue miners allegedly trapped in an abandoned coal mine in Dhanbad, Jharkhand, but operations are delayed as the exact location remains unidentified. Officials claim no signs of an incident have been found, while local residents and politicians allege a mine collapse during illegal mining activities.
Thousands of people from Ghazipur district and nearby areas turned up to attend the last rites of Mukhtar Ansari who died of cardiac arrest in Banda on Thursday.
Jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) at a hospital in Uttar Pradesh's Banda district early Tuesday with a complaint of abdominal pain.
The body was brought to the family's ancestral burial ground, about half a km from their residence, where a grave was dug on Friday near that of Mukhtar Ansari's parents.
A total of 78 Muslims were in the fray in the Lok Sabha elections this year, a significant drop from the last polls when 115 Muslim candidates were fielded by various parties.
People had also started gathering at Mukhtar Ansari's residence in Ghazipur and there was a large deployment of security personnel around the house.
The brothers were booked under the UP Gangsters Act in connection with the murder of the then BJP MLA from Ghazipur, Krishnanad Rai, on November 29, 2005 and the kidnapping-murder of Varanasi-based trader Nand Kishore Rungta in 1997.
Ansari was taken to the Rani Durgavati Medical College in Banda from the district jail after his health deteriorated.
Ahsan Ullah Khan, the additional district and session judge of the MP-MLA court in Sonbhadra, also imposed a fine of Rs 10 lakh on Gond which would be used in the rape survivor's rehabilitation.
From putting up a decent performance in the last Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh winning 10 seats stitching an alliance with arch rival Samajwadi Party, Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party drew a blank in the current general elections, dealing a severe blow to its reputation of representing the voice of Dalits in the state.
Akhilesh's fielding candidates from a broad spectrum of castes, not just Yadavs, and with the BJP losing in several seats in Purvanchal, suggests that smaller OBC communities shifted from the BJP to the SP in the region.
"The court of Additional Sessions Judge/First MP-MLA Court Durgesh also imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh on Mukhtar and Rs 1 lakh on Afzal," ADGC Criminal Neeraj Srivastava said.
Mukhtar Ansari was subjected to slow poisoning in jail, Umar Ansari, the son of the gangster-turned-politician who died of cardiac arrest at a hospital in Uttar Pradesh's Banda, alleged early Friday.
The youth -- their dreams of government jobs unfulfilled -- are voicing their frustration.
Banda chief judicial magistrate Bhagwan Das Gupta appointed Garima Singh, additional chief judicial magistrate (MP-MLA Court Banda) as the investigating officer in the case, the official said.
The notable names in the BJP's first list include Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh from Lucknow, Hema Malini from Mathura, Ajay Mishra Teni from Kheri, Smriti Irani from Amethi, Lallu Singh from Faizabad (Ayodhya) and Mahendra Nath Pandey from Chandauli among others.
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
The share of candidates who were successful among the BJP was 56.5% in 2019. It was 5% for the Congress.
The best-case scenario is that the BJP will top out at around 50 seats in UP -- a drop of 12 from the 62 it had won in 2019. Taken in tandem with Maharashtra and Karnataka, this is what is likely to put paid to the BJP's ambitions of a third term for Modi, argues Prem Panicker.
The court said had the prosecution witnesses not turned hostile, the outcome of the trial would have been different.
Gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari's brother alleged on Wednesday that inhuman treatment was given to him while being transferred to Banda jail from Punjab, saying it could have been better had he been shot dead at a road crossing.
After spending over two years in a Punjab prison, gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari was brought back to Banda jail early on Wednesday morning.
The Act deals with automatic disqualification of MPs and state legislators upon being convicted and sentenced for two years or more in a criminal case.
A court in Varanasi on Monday convicted gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari in the murder of Congress leader Awadhesh Rai more than 30 years ago.
Asserting that she is not against any religion, the VC suggested that azaan can be recited even without a loudspeaker so that it does not cause discomfort to others.
The Bahujan Samaj Party will make efforts to not field 'bahubali' (strongmen) or mafia candidates in next year's Uttar Pradesh polls, party supremo Mayawati said Friday, announcing that jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari will not be given a party ticket from Mau again.
Manoj Sinha's greatest asset is his capacity to get on with everyone regardless of political affiliation, notes Aditi Phadnis.
Just like the Congress, SP and BSP, small pro-Muslim parties are focussed on UP's 20 per cent Muslim voters, knowing that it could make the difference between defeat and victory. But many in the Ghazipur-Bhadohi-Azamgarh-Jaunpur belt insist that there is no such thing as the 'Muslim vote'.
The Bahujan Samajwadi Party expelled jailed Member of Legislative Assembly Mukhtar Ansari, who is facing 30 criminal cases including murder and kidnapping, and his brother former Member of Parliament Afzal Ansari from the party for their alleged continued involvement in criminal activities on Friday.
The Samajwadi Party on Monday sought the disqualification of six of its Members of Parliament who had defied the party whip and voted against the confidence motion last week.The party, which has already expelled the MPs, made the demand for their disqualification in a representation to the Speaker, Lok Sabha sources said.
Five Honourable MPs must be brought from their jail cells to Parliament, television cameras recording every move. It shall be an unsavoury beginning to the new alliance.
Jailed MLA of Quami Ekta Dal Mukhtar Ansari will withdraw his candidature from Varanasi against BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, "to strengthen secular forces and avoid division of votes".
In a major boost to the Congress in Varanasi -- where it is fighting an uphill battle against Bharatiya Janata Party's Narendra Modi and Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal -- Mukhtar Ansari's Quami Ekta Dal has announced its support for the Congress with an aim to defeat Narendra Modi.
The outgoing Lok Sabha had 23 Muslim MPs, the most being from Congress and TMC. The highest number of Muslim MPs were in 1980 when as many as 49 MPs from the community which constitute nearly fifth of Indian population present in the Lok Sabha.
As many as 48 ministers of National Democratic Allaince government were in the fray in the general elections.
Mukhtar Ansari's Quami Ekta Dal's merger with the Samajwadi Party last year had triggered turmoil in that party.
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