Modi's BJP has promised more revdis or freebies for these assembly elections than ever before, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Anupriya Patel, Pankaj Chaudhary and B L Verma are from the Other Backward Classes, which BJP leader in UP say make up 50 per cent of voters in the state. Three others -- Kaushal Kishore, Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma and S P Singh Baghel -- are from the Scheduled Castes category. Ajay Kumar is the lone Brahmin in this batch of ministers from the state.
The final phase saw voting in all 13 seats of Punjab and an equal number of seats in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight seats each in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, four in Himachal Pradesh, three in Jharkhand and the lone seat Chandigarh.
The BJP's bucket list this time includes districts such as Sultanpur, Aligarh, Firozabad, Deoband, Ghazipur, Basti and Mirzapur -- to rename a few. Virendra Singh Rawat reports.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi vacated the seat in the wake of office of profit controversy.
Officials said most of the preparations are complete and the counting will start at 8 am on Saturday.
The expelled MPs Narendra Kumar Kushwar (Mirzapur, UP) and Manoj Kumar (Palmur, RJD) wanted the court to set aside the order of the Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and restore their membership.\n
613 candidates are in the fray on 54 seats, including those falling in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's parliamentary segment Varanasi.
Her inclusion in the Modi's team is significant ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections next year and the Lok Sabha polls in 2024 as the Other Backward Classes have a sizeable number of voters in the key Purvanchal region.
Yogi will stay in Gorakhpur till May 19 and will address at least three rallies every day in the region, reports Siddharth Kalhans.
In Phase 6, indications are that the BJP, which is defending 40 seats, will lose in double digits and gain in single digits. Not good, if you are the ruling party scrambling to earn a working majority, with just one phase left to go, argues Prem Panicker.
The Congress is a dismal third in 17 of the 19 constituencies where the party's general secretary (east) campaigned in Uttar Pradesh.
Tuesday's exercise underlines Bharatiya Janata Party's attempts at wooing Dalits and OBCs, whose votes would be crucial to its fortunes in key states like UP and Gujarat.
Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com gives the lowdown on the 59 seats spread across seven states and one Union territory going to polls in the last and final phase of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections on May 19, 2019.
It has also sought a status report from the state government on 183 "police encounters" that have taken place since 2017.
The elections in this phase are seen as a big test for the Bharatiya Janata Party
Rediff.com gives you a look at newbies in the Council of Ministers
Voting for the seventh and final round will be held on March 7 for Varanasi and its eight adjoining districts.
The bypolls were conducted for two Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, one each in Meghalaya and Odisha and the Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency in Punjab.
Sources in various parties suggest that two lakh votes of the Patel community, locally known as OBC kurmi, for which mother-daughter led Apna Dal (S) and Apna Dal (K) are competing and over one lakh of OBC Rajbhars would be crucial in deciding the outcome of the assembly seats in Varanasi.
While the Apna Dal said it was 'free to make its own decision', the SBSP went a step ahead asserting that its option to join the SP-BSP alliance.
The second list has named 16 candidates from Uttar Pradesh and five from Maharashtra.
Claiming that the country's borders are not safe under the present regime, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Amit Shah on Wednesday said once Narendra Modi becomes the Prime Minister, Pakistani intruders "will not dare to enter" into Indian territory.
The kisan is as integral a part of the BJP's master plan for the 2019 polls as the Dalit because it surmised that the farmers and Dalits were as restive in UP as in much of the country, and if it had to cut its losses, its reflexes must kick in fast. Radhika Ramaseshan reports.
Yadav, a former Uttar Pradesh chief minister, was slated to travel to Kannuaj, around 125 km from the Uttar Pradesh capital, for a tractor rally as part of the 'Kisan Yatra' in support of farmers protesting against the Centre's new agri laws and the 'Bharat Bandh' called by them on Tuesday.
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.
After an invitation to him to attend an Allahabad university function stoked controversy, Aditynath has been 'advised' against entering the district and may face 'legal action' if he does not comply.
As Uttar Pradesh gears up for assembly elections early next year, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will address a public rally on October 10 in Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a party spokesperson said.
He congratulated the Uttar Pradesh government and industrialists for their commitment for development.
On the eve of the final phase of the Uttar Pradesh elections, Rediff.com's Aslam Hunani reviews the political landscape in the epicentre and beyond.
Literally testing the waters in the politically crucial state, Priyanka Gandhi, who is in charge of eastern UP for the party, travelled about 100 kilometres on the Ganga over three days, ending Wednesday in Varanasi.
The turnout for these seats was 57.92 per cent in the last assembly polls in 2012.
'Hum karan poochtey rahe avishvas ka, karan nahi bata payey to gale pad gaye'
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is headed for a big win in the Uttar Pradesh legislative council polls, bagging Barabanki and Ayodhya and leading in several other places. But it lost Varanasi to an Independent candidate.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath attributed the impressive show by his party to the "alert voters" who he said rejected the 'mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) of opposition parties.
Modi's NDA is good enough to give a psychological boost to the once 'untouchable' BJP and Modi but if the NDA doesn't get a majority on its own, then walking the last mile will be the greatest challenge of this election for Modi, says Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com
The boy from Kanpur kept his audiences in theatres, on television and lately on social media platforms engaged with vivid societal sketches, be it about travelling in Mumbai's famous locals or lampooning queues at wedding buffets.
UP now has 16 ministers, the maximum from any state, in an apparent bid to keep the Dalit and other backward class votebank content.
Rajnath Singh, under whose stewardship the Bharatiya Janata Party has stormed to power with its highest-ever tally, took charge as the Union home minister.
