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.
While people voted in a fifth round that will set the tone as this election rounds into the straight, and while Modi on the stump chews the cud of personal grievances and hackneyed promises that have long since passed their use-by date, there is a rogue wave rising -- what damage it will do, we will know 16 days from today, observes Prem Panicker.
He said the Uttar Pradesh police in all likelihood will seek his transit remand and also police remand to take him from Ahmedabad to Prayagraj and he "genuinely apprehends that he may be eliminated during this transit period".
"I am a five-time legislator and it has been allotted to me as a senior member of the state assembly," he said.
Sanjay Rana, who is associated with YouTube channel Moradabad Ujjala, was booked after a video of the event surfaced online and a local Bharatiya Janata Party youth wing leader filed a complaint.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's bypoll win in four of the six seats it contested has invigorated the party ahead of assembly polls in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.
Storming the Janata Dal Secular bastion, the ruling Congress in Karnataka on Saturday won the Mandya and Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha seats with impressive margins.
S P Singh Baghel and B L Verma who made it to the Union council of ministers on Wednesday are two prominent Other Backward Classes leaders from Uttar Pradesh.
Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Legislative Assembly Sangeet Som, accused of uploading a fake video that played a role in provoking communal tension in Muzaffarnagar and making inflammatory speeches, was arrested on Saturday.
The voting will begin at 7 am and end at 5 pm after the electioneering came to an end on Saturday, 48 hours before the electorate begin casting their votes.
The BJP MP's aide claimed that he had been tricked into attending the event, while the organiser claimed that it was not a nightclub, but a restaurant where no liquor would be served.
SP legislator from Swar Tanda (Rampur), Nawab Kazim Ali, and Ram Sewak Singh Patel, BJS MLA from Binawar (Badaun) joined the BSP in Lucknow.
Ahmad and Ashraf alias Khalid Azim will be kept in judicial custody till April 26, said advocate Vikram Singh, the counsel for Umesh Pal's wife Jaya.
The Congress on Thursday virtually ruled out any grand alliance in poll bound Uttar Pradesh including with Samajwadi Party insisting that Rahul Gandhi wanted to set things right in the state which is in bad shape for past 27 years in non-Congress rule.
'Congress and BSP are in the fray, but not in the contest.'
Opposition MLAs flung paper balls at Governor Ram Naik and marshals frantically deflected the projectiles with files as the opening day of the maiden session of the new Uttar Pradesh assembly presented a spectacle of complete mayhem.
The Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh was at the receiving end from both Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party over the violence in Ghaziabad in which six people were killed.
Hailing Banerjee as the "real Bengal tigress", the party, which had earlier said that it would join the electoral battle in the state, vowed to "stand in solidarity" with the TMC camp.
'Why are they not paying the same price for the land of farmers which they are taking over for developmental work?'
'Priya as well as my father (Sunil Dutt) has done a good job for this constituency. I will pray to God that she succeeds'
A voter turnout of over 40 per cent was recorded till 1 pm on Monday in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections in 96 constituencies spread over 10 states and Union Territories amid incidents of violence in Andhra Pradesh and reports of poll boycott in some villages of Uttar Pradesh.
Former Bharatiya Janata Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya on Wednesday said he was not going back to the saffron camp and indicated joining Samajwadi Party on Friday.
A First Information Report has been registered against controversial independent MLA and former minister in the previous Samajwadi Party government Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya for allegedly giving a false affidavit to procure arms licences from the state capital. The MLA has stated in his affidavit that he was not involved in any criminal case and no case was registered against him. However, police said that 41 cases were registered against him.
'Scores of important BJP MLAs are in touch with Akhileshji, but he has very humbly said that the SP's doors are now closed to BJP MLAs and leaders.'
Several prominent opposition leaders including Nationalist Congress Party's Sharad Pawar, Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah will share the dais at a rally being organised by Indian National Lok Dal in Haryana's Fatehabad on Sunday.
Kumar had also made it clear that he was in the process of uniting the non-BJP leaders.
A region-wise analysis of the Gujarat assembly results shows that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept Saurashtra region, winning 40 of 48 seats, regaining its hold over a region where the Congress held sway in 2017 polls.
Opposition political parties hit out at the UP government, questioning its seriousness in curbing crimes against women.
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".
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and MP Ramgopal Yadav accompanied 44-year-old Dimple during the filing of nomination papers at the District Magistrate's office in Mainpuri.
Its allies Apna Dal (S) and Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party bagged nine seats and four seats, respectively, taking the total tally of the combine to 325.
The Thackerays called on Pawar, a Rajya Sabha MP, after he arrived in Mumbai from New Delhi in the evening.
How did an Independent candidate win a seat in the face of the NaMo wave in UP?
With their high-decibel campaigns so far, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party may appear to be locked in a direct fight in Uttar Pradesh.
A day after saying that there would have been no partition if Muhammad Ali Jinnah was made the first prime minister of the country, Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief Om Prakash Rajbhar blamed the RSS on Thursday for the historic event.
In an obvious bid to settle her scores with the Centre, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Tuesday got FIRs lodged against two Union ministers and two Uttar Pradesh Congress leaders for bashing up activists of Samajwadi Party near the venue of Rahul Gandhi's campaign rally in Phoolpur on Monday.
Jayant Chaudhary has plenty of time to make his own mistakes. But this election is a crucial test of his leadership.
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.
Mulayam Singh and Mayawati fell out after their ruling coalition in Uttar Pradesh crashed in 1995, two years after they came together along with smaller parties to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party out of power.
A group of Muslim MLAs of the Samajwadi Party on Monday demanded expulsion of senior leader Amar Singh from the party, accusing him of damaging the interests of the organisation.
