Forty-two of the 102 Lok Sabha seats going to polls in the general election's first phase are constituencies that have three or more candidates facing criminal cases, according to a poll rights body.
Umesh Pal's family thanked Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and the police.
Opposition leaders have slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party over its Lok Sabha member Ramesh Bidhuri, who is in the eye of a storm for his derogatory comments against Bahujan Samaj Party MP Danish Ali, being given poll responsibility by the party in Rajasthan's Tonk district.
Behind its high-decibel campaign, powered by well-organised party machinery, the BJP also appears to have made a slight departure from its 'next generation' approach to stay ahead of an aggressive Congress and enhance its prospects of securing a majority of seats.
An eighth BJP candidate on Thursday filed his nomination for the Rajya Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, setting the stage for a contest with the Samajwadi Party on February 27.
Surprisingly, the BJP's nearest rival in ad spend was not the Congress, but the Bharat Rashtra Samithi.
Meanwhile, the Congress and RSP whole-heartedly backed the Kollam MP.
In the chair was Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, a Bharatiya Janata Party leader of the old school with friends across parties unlike the duo who currently run the BJP.
'They could have told the media that there is nothing in it and let me read it out.'
Congress president Rahul Gandhi will take the final call on Wednesday on who will be the chief minister.
The last time a non-Gandhi was in the fray from the constituency was in 1998, when Satish Sharma, a close aide of Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi, contested the polls but lost to the BJP's Sanjaya Sinh.
The SP has offered 11 seats to the Congress and seven seats to the RLD for the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Majority of these constituencies are in Uttar Pradesh and the party that is on the third slot even as the counting is still underway on several seats is the Bahujan Samaj Party, a party neither with the National Democratic Alliance nor the opposition INDIA bloc.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Tuesday claimed the Muslims made a "huge mistake" by voting for the Samajwadi Party, which she accused of being "complicit with the Bharatiya Janata Party in giving communal colour" to the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
The ruling BJP-led coalition ended Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan's over four-decade dominance in Rampur with its ally Apna Dal-Sonelal winning the Suar assembly by-election by a margin of 8,724 votes.
Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar, Rashtriya Lok Dal's Anil Kumar and two Bharatiya Janata Party leaders were sworn in on Tuesday as Yogi Adityanath expanded his council of ministers, weeks ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
A total of 517 candidates have withdrawn their candidature till on Monday, even as parties faced "rebel trouble" in several segments.
About 82 per cent of the total income from unknown sources declared by national political parties in 2022-23 came from electoral bonds, according to a poll rights body.
Mayawati alleged that the prime minister had crossed all limits of decency in terming the Bahujan Samaj Party her personal property.
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.
It would be better if the Supreme Court takes cognisance of this 'extremely serious and worrisome' incident, which is being discussed across the country, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said.
Despite heavy snowfall in Srinagar, the rally to mark the culmination of Bharat Jodo Yatra went ahead, with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and other prominent leaders of opposition parties addressing the march.
Bansuri Swaraj, the daughter of former Union minister Sushma Swaraj, will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls from the New Delhi seat and incumbent MP Manoj Tiwari from Northeast Delhi as the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday announced the names of five candidates from the national capital, dropping four MPs -- Meenakshi Lekhi, Harsh Vardhan, Parvesh Verma and Ramesh Bidhuri.
Karan Bhushan rejects the charges against his father, saying the "allegations are political and made up. We will challenge them in court".
"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.
According to district officer Hardoi Mangla Prasad Singh, Khan Mubarak (43) had pneumonia and was undergoing treatment for the past several days.
As many as 624 candidates are in the fray in this round of voting being held in Pilibhit, Lakhimpur Kheri, Sitapur, Hardoi, Unnao, Lucknow, Rae Bareli, Banda, and Fatehpur districts.
Of the 34 SC reserved seats that went to the polls, the BJP won 22 and the Congress 11.
Gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad's son Asad, wanted in the Umesh Pal murder case, was killed in an encounter with the Uttar Pradesh police in Jhansi on Thursday, officials said.
When asked from where Akhilesh Yadav will contest, the source said that the party has not yet disclosed the seat.
The outcome of the polls to the Rajya Sabha is likely to have an impact in the politically crucial state just ahead of the general elections in the country.
A BSP functionary said it was a "planned murder" and claimed there was an "intelligence failure." Therefore, the central agency should probe the case.
Chandrashekhar said he would ensure that PM Modi is not re-elected to the Lok Sabha from Varanasi.
Sticking with the Brahmin-OBC combination for deputy chief ministers, Brajesh Pathak and Keshav Prasad Maurya took oath on Friday as deputies of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said the BJP parliamentary board and its national leadership will decide under whom the upcoming state assembly elections will be fought.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance on Saturday retained power in Maharashtra, pocketing a whopping 230 of the 288 assembly seats, as the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi's dream of wresting power fizzled, with the opposition combine managing to garner just 50 seats.
Political observers lauded the SP's choices in fielding several non-Yadav and Scheduled Caste candidates, the party's alliance with the Congress, and Rahul Gandhi's campaign around the danger to the Constitution if the BJP won a big majority.
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 Congress appeared to have bounced back in the state's political landscape after suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of the AAP in the 2022 Punjab assembly polls.
With a significant number of Opposition leaders present at the swearing-in ceremony of the Congress government in Karnataka, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Sunday said Opposition unity requires much more than optics of this nature and stressed the need for meeting of minds, a common agenda and sacrificing partisan interests.
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