The defeat of Dimple Yadav, the young daughter-in-law of Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav to Bollywood actorturned-politician Raj Babbar in the Firozabad Lok Sabha by-election was a writing on the wall.
Samajwadi party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's daughter-in-law Dimple is the first lady from the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister's family to take a plunge into politics.
Sheela Bhatt reports from Firozabad, the country's centre for glass bangles, on what life is like for its workers in the wake of the national lockdown.
The Congress is banking on decisions like reducing electricity tariff and fuel prices, taken during current CM Charanjit Singh Channi's 111-day tenure.
The party has left Mainpuri, described as its "safest" seat, for Mulayam Yadav, who is the MP from Azamgarh right now.
The Samajwadi Party released its list of 40 star campaigners in which there was no mention of Mulayam Singh Yadav.
The party will also leave two seats for the Apna Dal, and entered into an electoral agreement with the lesser known Jan Adhikar Party.
Licensed bars in major UP cities could earlier remain open up to 1 am, or 3 am if they were located in five-star hotels. Unlike before, hotels in small cities can also apply for a liquor licence.
The letter by Singh, who is camping at the Dalit Prerna Sthal in Noida along with his faction members since December 2, came as protestors marked the birth anniversary of former prime minister and farmers' leader Chaudhary Charan Singh.
Counting of votes began on Sunday for lakhs of panchayat seats in Uttar Pradesh, a process expected to take two days across 829 centres. There were scuffles involving the supporters of candidates in three districts and social distancing to fight the spread of coronavirus went for a toss at several places, reports said.
Director General of Police O P Singh said that two people lost their lives in Bijnor and one each in Meerut, Sambhal and Firozabad. But officials reported a death in Kanpur as well.
In the third phase of the Lok Sabha election on April 23, 116 seats spread across 13 states and two Union Territories, will go to the polls.
'Outside the core voter base of upper caste Hindus, there is a large section unhappy with the performance of the BJP.'
He also said the governments of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the BSP and the SP that have ruled Uttar Pradesh in the last 32 years, when Congress was not in power, failed to live up to the expectations of the people and the Congress was set for a comeback in the state.
Farmer leader Darshan Pal accused the Centre of dividing farmer organisations, but it will not happen.
Babbar was elected from Agra as its Lok Sabha MP twice -- in 1999 and 2004. However, following delimitation in 2008, the Lok Sabha seat became reserved for the scheduled castes.
Coming from the 'first family' of Uttar Pradesh politics has not always been a cakewalk for Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple, who is trying to shed the dynasty politics product tag and is banking on her "personal" rapport for a win in this seat in Thursday's poll.
The number of protesters swelled at Delhi border points on Wednesday. Police stepped up security after thousands blocked key gateways into the national capital for the seventh day on the trot, leaving commuters facing a harrowing time.
Trains were set afire and blocked, and public vehicles attacked as protests over 'Agnipath' swept across several places in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Jammu on Thursday amid partisan political voices in favour and against the new recruitment scheme for the defence forces that has set off a firestorm.
Read on and be fascinated by the mind-boggling history of India's capital.
Ashok Chowdhury, a Dalit politics expert said, "BJP had impressed the Dalits in the 2014, 2017 and 2019 elections, but it's difficiult to retain them now".
Samajwadi Party on Friday declared its first list of candidates for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections with its president Mulayam Singh Yadav seeking another term from his Mainpuri seat.
A three-member delegation of the party -- Union ministers Venkaiah Naidu, Nirmala Sitharaman and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi -- met EC officials and submitted their memorandum.
Eleven deaths have been reported in Saharanpur followed by 10 in Meerut, six in Agra, four in Mainpuri, three each in Muzaffarnagar and Kasganj, two each in Amroha, Bareilly, Baghpat and Bulandshahr and one each in Kanpur Dehat, Mathura, Ghaziabad, Hapur, Rae Bareli, Jalaun, Jaunpur, Pratapgarh, Banda, Firozabad, Amethi, Kanpur and Pilibhit, they said.
Dimple Yadav, wife of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, will contest the Kannauj Lok Sabha by-election as a Samajwadi Party candidate. "As per the wish of the party workers, the central parliamentary board of the party has decided that Dimple Yadav will contest the by-election for Kannauj seat," SP national general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav told reporters. Akhilesh Yadav had contested from the Firozabad and Kannauj seat in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls.
The youth, who sustained bullet injuries during a clash between supporters of a defeated Samajwadi Party candidate and the police, died at a hospital in Agra, the police said in Firozabad on Tuesday.
"The victory margin will be huge since there is an alliance between Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party. Bharatiya Janata Party did not fulfil its promises and now to divert attention, it is using the security forces. It has been a failed government," Dimple Yadav said.
Somaiya, an old BJP hand and one of its leading speakers on economic issues in Parliament, had been a trenchant critic of the Sena.
The court allowed the group to re-auction certain properties in Ajmer, Firozabad, Vellore, Tiruchirappalli and Ujjain for which the bidding was at a much higher price
A 35-year-old woman was allegedly gang-raped and later set afire by three youths in Nidhauli area of Etah district in Uttar Pradesh. This makes it the third case of rape in Uttar Pradesh in the last two days.
These 15 districts, included Agra, Lucknow, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Kanpur, Varanasi, Shamli, Meerut, Bareilly and Bulandshahr.
Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav's son Akhilesh said he would give credit to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for Raj Babbar's landslide victory in the recent Lok Sabha by-poll at Firozabad.
Polling for one Lok Sabha and 31 assembly seats spread across seven states started on Saturday morning amid tight security. As polling started at 8 am, voters were seen trickling in at some booths. The most hi-profile electoral battle is being held between Congress' actor-turned-politician Raj Babbar, who is pitched against Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav's daughter-in- law Dimple, in the Firozabad Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh.
Virtually signalling the end of their ties, the Samajwadi Party on Wednesday lashed out at the Congress for contesting the Firozabad Lok Sabha bypoll against Mulayam Singh Yadav's daughter-in-law Dimple.
In a brutal action, policemen slapped, kicked and cane-charged a group of women protesting on the national highway in Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh against the death of two persons in a mishap.
The Samajwadi Party on Tuesday suffered a major setback when it lost the prestigious Firozabad Lok Sabha seat, with party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's daughter-in-law losing to actor-turned-politician Raj Babbar of the Congress, by a huge margin of over 85,000 votes. Babbar, a former Member of Parliament from Agra who rebelled against the SP and joined the Congress before the Lok Sabha elections in May, secured 3,12,728 votes while Dimple Yadav got 2,27,385 votes.
Mobile resellers in and around Agra are in a state of panic these days after an arbitrary interpretation of laws by the local police.
He said there was no report of any untoward incident from anywhere in the state.
Sen, who enjoys minister of state status, has been accused of using derogatory words against Gandhi and asking the organisers of the function to throw away his picture on November 2, Garg said.
The apex court also directed the state government to explain why there was a sudden flurry of activities in and around the Taj Mahal and the Taj Trapezium Zone and why leather industries and hotels were coming up there.