The poll is scheduled for July 17 and the counting of votes will take place on July 20.
May Prabhu Ram give strength to his family in the hour of sadness to bear the loss. May Prabhu Ram give consolation to people in the country who believe in his values, ideals, culture and traditions," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said wile praying tribute to Kalyan Singh.
Newly-inducted Minister of State for HRD Ram Shankar Katheria was at the centre of a controversy over an allegation that his graduation marksheet was forged, a charge he strongly denied.
The second list has named 16 candidates from Uttar Pradesh and five from Maharashtra.
Addressing an election meeting, Amar Singh charged Mulayam with giving protection to the corrupt and criminals and said that Yadav's cycle, SP's poll symbol, "had two wheels (Mualyam and Amar Singh) of which one has been removed and with one wheel left it would only grace a circus after the polls".
Newly-appointed chief ministerial candidate Sheila Dikshit and state chief Raj Babbar came out all guns blazing against the SP, BSP and BJP.
943 candidates are contesting 71 seats spread across 9 states.
"The government is afraid of oath ceremony of a student leader and is stopping me at the airport to prevent me from visiting Allahabad," the SP chief claimed.
Claiming that neither the Congress nor the Bharatiya Janata Party would gain majority in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday said the Third Front would form the government at the Centre and his party would "play a key role".
Sharat Pradhan secures exclusive access to the Justice Vishnu Sahai report and discovers it blames two BJP MLAs, a former BSP MP and his cohorts, local intelligence officials and the media for the horrific Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013, but attributes no blame to the Samajwadi Party government in the state.
Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati and other senior politicians on Sunday cast their votes in the third phase of Uttar Pradesh elections and claimed that their parties will form the next government.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Thursday launched a frontal attack on Bharatiya Janata Party's PM candidate Narendra Modi saying the country will be "ruined" due to spike in communal riots if he is voted to power.
The bench made it clear the tentative view was expressed by it as the matter would take some time for hearing.
In Bundelkhand, support for Narendra Modi seems to cut across the caste barriers; even so, a vigorous and 4-cornered tussle is on the cards. Sahil Makkar reports
Another bill related to the farm sector, the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, was passed on Tuesday.
'My passion is dancing and music. What is wrong with that?'
Singh, a veteran Congress leader, was a member of the Upper House of Parliament from Assam for almost three decades.
Accompanied by party leaders Dimple Yadav, wife of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, Rajendra Chowdhury and Kironmay Nanda, besides businessman Subrata Roy Sahara, Jaya Bachchan, who turns 70 next month, filed her nomination at the Central Hall of the state assembly.
However,the exit polls got their forecast of a tight finish in Madhya Pradesh right.
Siddiqui's exit came within hours of the publication of his interview in the English daily Indian Express -- bearing the headline 'Mayawati comes, speaks, goes, there's no discussion' -- where he had sought to brand Mayawati as a despot.
'Congress leaders don't believe in themselves and in the potential of the party.' 'Unless they have faith in themselves, only then will the public have faith in them.'
Here are some of the reactions to the apex court's decision.
Countering the opposition claim that farmers across the country are agitated over the three new laws, he said that those in just one state are being misinformed and instigated.
'Vajpayeeji's BJP was democratic.' 'It was a BJP that belonged to its party workers. Every worker, every member was an Atal Bihari.' Today's BJP belongs to businessmen.' 'Modi and Amit Shah have reduced the BJP to a two-man party.'
In the event of a triangular contest the winning party will need about 40 per cent of the votes polled. And it is here that the votes of the numerically smaller communities will come into play.
Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh and his party colleague Ram Gopal Yadav along with eight other new members of Parliament were administered oath by Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari on Wednesday.
BSP chief says Ambedkar talked of separate electorates for Dalits; didn't believe in Hindutva.
The party, however, has retained state president Naresh Uttam.
Nothing has been done for Dalits in the last four years, Nagina MP Yashwant Singh wrote in a letter to the PM.
'Young Dalits are looking for better educational opportunities, more job avenues in the private sector, which need not necessarily mean job quotas, but a more welcoming corporate world that offers a liberated social environment, essentially a new India.'
Can compassion, common courtesy or an 'emotional connect' win seats in the harsh realpolitik of UP, a state riddled with divisions of caste and religion, and confronted with a seemingly impregnable BSP-SP alliance? asks Sunil Sethi.
Bharatiya Janata Party member of Legislative Assembly Suresh Rana, who was arrested for his alleged role in fanning communal violence in Muzaffarnagar, was booked on Thursday under the National Security Act.
'For the Congress, it has become necessary to make alliances, but this is not easy to deliver at the local level,' says Aakar Patel.
Alleging that atrocities on Dalits had gone up under the BJP-led government in the state, the SP chief asked the ruling regime to do some development work.
An Uttar Pradesh government panel on Sunday accused a Bharatiya Janata Party MP of inciting Saharanpur riots, besides blaming laxity by local officials, sparking a war of words among parties with BJP dismissing the report as "politically motivated" and an attempt by ruling Samajwadi Party to hide its "failures".
Leaders from across the political spectrum criss-crossed the entire state to woo the voters but Mulayam mostly kept indoors.
Shah attended a function on renaming of Mughalsarai junction after Pt Deendayal Upadhyay.
The ruling Congress on Wednesday swept the urban body polls in Punjab, winning six municipal corporations, emerging as the largest party in the seventh and bagging most of the 109 municipal council and nagar panchayats.
In a shot in the arm for the Bharatiya Janata Party and Shiromani Akali Dal ahead of Punjab assembly polls, their alliance on Tuesday defeated Congress in the Chandigarh municipal corporation election in which demonetisation had emerged as a key issue.
Meet Anand Kumar, a government clerk who transformed into a real estate and hospitality baron.
