'...if elections were to be held today.' 'The problem is Akhilesh is not very aggressive.' 'Had he started his campaign aggressively six months ago, the picture in UP would have been very different.'
The move came after the Uttar Pradesh government on July 3 gave the green signal for filing of the chargesheet.
The Manikarnika actor, known for provocative and often inflammatory statements, was once again the centre of debate -- and ire -- with politicians across the spectrum, including Bharatiya Janata Party MP Varun Gandhi, among the host of social media users and others who reacted with outrage for her comments at an event on Wednesday evening.
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.
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of the agitating unions, is meeting on Sunday to decide on the next course of action, including on the MSP issue and the proposed daily tractor march to Parliament during the upcoming Winter Session, SKM core committee member Darshan Pal said.
'Economic issues do not matter during elections; it is the emotional connect that helps swing votes.'
The Uttar Pradesh government grappled on Monday with the aftermath of violence during a farmers protest in Lakhimpur Kheri, lodging a case against Union minister Ajay Mishra's son, promising a probe by a retired high court judge and stopping opposition leaders from reaching the trouble spot.
'Why did Varun Gandhi run away from Pilibhit? He leaves the constituency which he wins by a 300,000 margin and remembers his father's constituency in the second election?' 'A person who goes by the Gandhi name would stand with the Congress. All Varun Gandhi's ancestors were with the Congress. He left the legacy a long time ago,' the Congress's Ameeta Singh, the national badminton player-turned-politician who is contesting the Sultanpur seat against Varun Gandhi, tells Swarupa Dutt/Rediff.com
The Sikhs, especially in Punjab, are already angry and frustrated, cautions Shekhar Gupta.
Pitching for her son and Sultanpur member of Parliament, Union Minister Maneka Gandhi has said that Uttar Pradesh would have benefited had there been a Bharatiya Janata Party led government in the state with Varun Gandhi as its chief minister.
Bahujan Samaj Party Member of Parliament Shafiqur Rahman Barq, who had walked out of Lok Sabha while Vande Mataram was being played, has been dragged to court by a social activist for "showing disrespect" to the national song. Pradip Tewari, in his petition filed in the Chief Judicial Magistrate's court of Pilibhit district on Monday, has also accused Barq of passing derogatory remarks against Vande Mataram, his counsel Sant Ram Rathore said.
Bharatiya Janata Party MP Varun Gandhi was on Wednesday acquitted by a local court in Pilibhit district in connection with a hate speech case lodged against him during Lok Sabha elections in 2009.
At least 28 people have so far lost their lives in rain related incidents in Uttar Pradesh whereas a population of five lakh in some 600 villages of the state has been affected because of it.
Priyanka Gandhi's charge were the key seats of Lucknow, Amethi, Raebareli, Sultanpur, Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Phulpur, Allahabad, Barabanki, and Kushinagar.
Under the partnership, IOC's rural petrol pump outlets -- Kisan Seva Kendras -- will act as the bank's Business Correspondents, HDFC Bank said in a statement.
Mystery shrouds the death of three tigers in a row in the Terai forests of Uttar Pradesh over the past few days.
After a sustained attack on the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party over the last three days, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Thursday trained his guns on the Bharatiya Janata Party. Significantly, his first major attack on BJP came in parts of Pilibhit, the political turf of his first cousin and BJP member of Parliament Varun Gandhi. He accused BJP of making only "false and hollow promises" with the sole intent of serving its short-term political gains.
More than 20 months after Bhartiya Janata Party Member of Parliament Varun Gandhi spewed communal venom during his election campaign in Pilibhit, the Uttar Pradesh government on Friday gave its mandatory sanction for his prosecution.
The flood situation worsened further in the western districts of Uttar Pradesh with the death of four more persons in rain related incidents even as around 177 villages of Bareilly, Badaun, Pilibhit and Shahajanpur were inundated.
More than 200 villages have been inundated in Bareilly and Moradabad divisions due to floods even as seven trains have been cancelled in the region.
Actor-turned-politician and Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament Shatrughan Sinha on Saturday strongly favoured invitation to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for campaigning for the upcoming assembly elections in Bihar.
Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament Varun Gandhi on Tuesday said that he had plans to introduce Anna Hazare's version of Lokpal Bill as a private member's bill in Parliament. "I plan to introduce the Jan Lokpal Bill as a private member's bill in the Parliament. I will do that next week," said the BJP Lok Sabha member from Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh.
Having finally acquired some prominence in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), recently nominated party national secretary Varun Gandhi landed in Lucknow on Wednesday afternoon, only to give sermons to not just party workers, but both colleagues as well as seniors.
Maneka Gandhi will contest from Sultanpur and Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit.
As many as 28 out of 41 sitting women MPs, including Sonia Gandhi, Hema Malini and Kirron Kher, retained their seats in Lok Sabha.
Union minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi asked officials in her Lok Sabha constituency of Pilibhit to follow the example of Sonia in order to check corruption in the education department.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Varun Gandhi on Wednesday said all statues of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati would be replaced with those of Lord Ram once the party regains power in the state.
The Pilibhit police on Tuesday registered a case against Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Varun Gandhi for his allegedly inflammatory speeches on the directions of the Election Commission. Station Officer of the Barkhera police station registered the case against Gandhi for allegedly making speeches with an intention to create enemity among people on the basis of religion. The case was filed under the provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the RPA.
The stray tiger that had been on the prowl in parts of Uttar Pradesh for the last four months, was shot down on Tuesday evening. The three-year old animal that had lost its way after stepping out of its natural home in the forests of Pilibhit on the Himalayan foothills , traversed across nearly five districts including Lucknow to finally met its end in the Bachuna forests near Kumarganj in Faizabad district.
Rediff.com brings you some recent cases where women have said enough is enough and gone after eve teasers with vengeance.
BJP MP Varun Gandhi, who has drawn criticism from within the party for his alleged hate speech in Pilibhit during the Lok Sabha polls, today met state RSS leaders in Lucknow.
A local court has issued notice to Bharatiya Janata Party MP Varun Gandhi asking him to appear in court in connection with a 2009 hate speech case.
The tiger that strayed out of the forests of Uttar Pradesh's Pilibhit on Monday night was on Tuesday declared a man-eater. The decision followed the failure of wildlife officials to tranquilise the tiger that mauled a 14-year-old boy in Serai-Belari village in Barabanki district, about 40 km from Lucknow on Monday night. The state's chief wildlife conservator B K Patnaik, who rushed to the village where the tiger had taken cover in the thick lantana bushes.
'Expect very heavy rainfall at some places in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar along with sub-Himalayan West Bengal comprising of Alipurduar, Cooch Behar, Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Siliguri, Jalpaiguri, including Sikkim, parts of Arunachal Pradesh, and parts of lower Assam, Rangia downward like Barpeta, Goalpara, Dhubri along with parts of Meghalaya.'
Rampur, Pilibhit and Bahraich districts reported two deaths each, while two persons were killed in Ballia and Shahjahanpur respectively.
'We are not Mahatma Gandhi's children that we keep giving and not get anything in return.'
The UP government is also planning to free up its own land from illegal encroachment to set up these new cow- shelters in "safe locations" and with full facility for fodder and water.
The party will also leave two seats for the Apna Dal, and entered into an electoral agreement with the lesser known Jan Adhikar Party.
However, two districts -- Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh and Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar in Punjab -- which did not record a fresh case in the last 28 days, reported new COVID-19 cases on Monday, it added.
CM Yogi Adityanath expressed condolences and directed DGP Sulkhan Singh to immediately follow up on the investigations to nab the culprits.
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