Renowned classical vocalist and Padma Vibhushan Pandit Chhannulal Mishra passed away at the age of 89 after a prolonged illness. He was an exponent of Hindustani classical music and the Banaras gharana.
In the morning, he offered prayers at the Dashashwamedh Ghat and the Kaal Bhairav temple in Varanasi.
'INDIA will easily cross 50 seats out of 90 in Jammu and Kashmir.'
Ramesh asked the PM why river Ganga is "dirtier than before" even after spending Rs 20,000 crore on the Namami Gange project.
Few in Varanasi expect the result to be different from 2014 and 2019. The only point of interest is whether Narendra Modi will increase his winning margin against his rivals.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have got a tough fight in Varanasi had Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contested against him as Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) candidate, feel party workers from the temple town.
The electoral battle in Varanasi, according to locals and political experts, is not about whether the PM will win for a third successive occasion, but if he will increase his share of the votes polled and his win margin.
The Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee is keen to field senior leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from Varanasi and will soon send a proposal in this regard to the top leadership, said newly appointed party's state president Ajay Rai on Sunday.
The JD-U insisted that its decision to fight the polls independently will have no impact on its ties with the BJP in Bihar.
Murli Manohar Joshi makes a rare public appearance.
Priyanka Gandhi and other leaders, including Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, waved at the large crowd as the procession wound its way through Varanasi's roads.
Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on Thursday filed his nomination papers from Varanasi Lok Sabha seat, saying he had been called by "mother Ganga" to contest from this holy city.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal will file his nomination for the high-profile electoral contest in Varanasi where he will face stiff challenge from BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
Although Muslims in Varanasi are clearly disconcerted by Narendra Modi's Hindutva agenda and are fearful of the future, they believe his emergence on the national political stage will not disturb the famous 'Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb.'
Pitching his aam aadmi credentials, Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday filed his nomination for the high-profile Varanasi Lok Sabha seat and accused Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi of spending huge sums of money in the ongoing electoral battle, which he said was all about eliminating corruption.
Will 'Bhaiyyaji', as Priyanka is called in UP, contest against Modi?
BJP chief Amit Shah had a meal with a Dalit family in PM Modi's Lok Sabha constituency.
Varanasi, the high-profile Lok Sabha constituency, says it will vote for hope on Monday.
Priyanka also dismissed Bharatiya Janata Party leader and union minister Uma Bharati's controversial remarks that the country will see her the way it views a "thief's wife".
Modi praised Tamil Nadu as a special place and lauded the Tamil language as eternal and its culture as global.
Almost all prominent leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, as well as members of the National Democratic Alliance and North-East Democratic Alliance accompanied Modi.
Tej Bahadur through his plea sought direction to allow him to contest the Lok Sabha election from the Varanasi seat.
Aam Aadmi party on Thursday released manifesto for its most important contest - Varanasi Lok Sabha seat where party chief Arvind Kejriwal is taking on BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.
The visit to this temple town is his first since he won the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat with a huge margin of 4.79 lakh votes, nearly 1 lakh votes more since 2014.
"You take any section of society be it Dalits, weavers or Brahmins, everybody has been exploited. The administration of Yogi Adityanath ji is working completely against the 'vichaar' (thoughts) of Guru Gorakhnath," she said at a rally, taking a swipe at the BJP leader who is also the head of the prominent Mutt in Gorakhpur named after Saint Gorakhnath.
Ayyakannu, who is also president of the National South Indian Rivers Inter-Linking Farmers Association, said the decision to contest the polls from Uttar Pradesh was to urge the Bharatiya Janata Party to include in their manifesto that their demands, including "profitable prices for farm produce," would be fulfilled.
The new Council of Ministers has representation from almost all the states, except Andhra Pradesh and the north-eastern states of Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura.
The Congress also fielded Madhusudan Tiwari from Gorakhpur against BJP's actor-turned politician Ravi Kishan.
The Allahabad high court on Friday issued a notice to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a petition challenging his election from the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh.
A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com visited many polling booths in Varanasi on polling day. This is what he discovered.
While Congress leader Sam Pitroda says it was Priyanka's own decision, party spokesperson Rajiv Shukla says it was Rahul's call.
Even as the controversy surrounding 'Har Har Modi' slogan is yet to die down, supporters of Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi have released a new poster in the temple town of Modi using a "modified" version of a 'shloka' eulogising Goddess Durga.
With the Aam Aadmi Party targeting him, Narendra Modi on Wednesday claimed that political parties were getting together to prevent him from coming to power in the Lok Sabha elections and called the fledgling party as the 'B' team of Congress.
Whether his nomination was rightly or wrongly rejected by the Election Commission depends on his eligibility, the court said.
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.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday arrived in the holy city for a month-long campaign and was greeted with posters that accused him of being a 'deserter', an apparent reference to his resignation as Delhi chief minister within 49 days of taking charge.
Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday expressed confidence of defeating Narendra Modi in Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency in the upcoming elections, saying that he had not chosen a 'safe' seat since his main objective was to beat the BJP's prime ministerial candidate.
Senior Congress leader Rashid Alvi on Monday joined the party men who have offered to contest against Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from Varanasi Lok Sabha seat.
Modi's tweet comes after Shankaracharya Swaroopanand Saraswati objected to the slogan being used in favour of BP's PM candidate
Yadav had moved the top court challenging the decision of Returning Officer to reject his nomination papers from Varanasi Lok Sabha seat, saying it was intended to "give walkover" to PM Modi.
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