"The murder of Atiq-Ashraf was committed in front of the media. The three shooters are under arrest. We will take them in police remand and all the questions regarding the killing will be answered," DIG, STF, Anand Dev Tiwari told reporters.
Criminals and terrorists have no caste or religion, he said, adding that those who have suspicions on such police action can always approach courts for remedial measures.
Reacting to the statement, Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary said "insulting the Sanatan Dharma again and again" has become the habit of the Samajwadi Party and its leaders.
He is the fourth chief minister from the saffron party to head the northern state. Before Adityanath, Kalyan Singh, Ram Prakash Gupta and Rajnath Singh of the BJP had served as Uttar Pradesh chief ministers.
The Bahujan Samaj Party will make efforts to not field 'bahubali' (strongmen) or mafia candidates in next year's Uttar Pradesh polls, party supremo Mayawati said Friday, announcing that jailed gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari will not be given a party ticket from Mau again.
Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah on Wednesday dubbed the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party as "KASAB", adding yet another acronym in the Uttar Pradesh poll campaign, and said development will elude the state till "Kasab is laid to rest".
The state government had on June 24 directed district adminstration to issue SC certificates to 17 OBCs -- Kashyap, Rajbhar, Dhivar, Bind, Kumhar, Kahar, Kewat, Nishad, Bhar, Mallah, Prajapati, Dhimar, Batham, Turha, Godia, Manjhi and Machua.
Party chief Chaudhary Ajit Singh and Jayant Chaudhary will decide on the number of seats the party will contest and the matter may be discussed during a meeting in the next few days
Congress veteran Kapil Sibal had on Wednesday filed his nomination as an SP-backed Independent candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls.
The BJP stormed back to power in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, trouncing its main rival SP, with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath asserting that people have buried the politics of caste and religion.
SP leader Akhilesh Yadav has successfully poached a number of OBC leaders from the ruling party, including Swami Prasad Maurya, in his efforts to broaden his party's social base beyond the traditional Muslim and Yadav votebank to take it on this time round.
Ill-health forced Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to cancel his scheduled visit to Chennai on Tuesday, where he was invited by his Tamil Nadu counterpart MK Stalin, a key aide of the Janata Dal-United leader said.
This year promises to offer ample opportunities on the electoral turf to the SP, BSP and Congress to get their act together and play the "semi-final" of sorts before the "final match" two years later, reports Virendra Singh Rawat
Aside from the 36 MPs, the meeting was also attended by BJP president J P Nadda and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi, they said.
A surrender application, said that Pandey, the son of former BSP lawmaker Rakesh Pandey, has been wrongly framed in the FIR and subjected to media trial.
The curtain came down on rumbustious electioneering over the last two months when assembly polls were also held in four other states - Goa, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Manipur.
In contrast to the inertia in the SP camp, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party showed no complacency in the run-up to the polls this month.
Religion matters. Aspirational India is still poor. India admires strong leaders. India values decency. Shreekant Sambrani highlights the reasons why the BJP pulled off improbable victories in the Hindi heartland.
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.
Addressing media persons in Varanasi, Sinha claimed that an industrialist was working out a deal between the two, but refused to identify him.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-backed Samajwadi Party rebel candidate Nitin Agarwal was elected deputy speaker of the Uttar Pradesh assembly on Monday, defeating Narendra Verma, the official candidate of Akhilesh Yadav's party, by 244 votes.
Rahul Gandhi said the meeting was very productive and everyone decided to stop the BJP from further assault of institutions and the Constitution.
"Do I need somebody's permission whenever I move out of Lucknow? Is there a problem why I am not being allowed to go to Agra, is there a law and order issue," she asked policemen who stopped her cavalcade.
'He won't be able to migrate; he must survive in that environment.' 'He will go back after the election to becoming invisible.'
A fierce competition among parties to offer freebies and guarantees, a scramble for tribal, OBC, women votes and a touch of Hindutva -- all have combined to make the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls a high-stakes battle with main rivals BJP and the Congress pulling out all the stops to gain power.
If the BJP is set to return to power in UP, Uttarakhand, Manipur and even Goa, it is not because of the party's performance or the quality of governance. No. It is essentially Modi's popularity, observes Virendra Kapoor.
Within hours of announcing his plans to float a political outfit ahead of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, former IPS officer Amitabh Thakur was arrested from his residence in Lucknow on Friday on serious charges, including abetment of suicide of a rape victim and her friend in Delhi recently.
Former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Friday hit out at the Congress for blaming the anti-incumbency of his four-and-half-years tenure for the poor show in assembly polls, saying the party's leadership will never learn.
The Congress, meanwhile, alleged that both the Samajwadi Party and the BJP are hand-in-glove with the criminals and were two sides of the same coin.
A court in Varanasi on Monday convicted gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari in the murder of Congress leader Awadhesh Rai more than 30 years ago.
"Our party is stronger than the Congress in the state. While the Congress won 40 seats in panchayat polls, we scored a victory in 83 panchayats. AAP got over 40 lakh votes in these polls, where 1600 party candidates contested," Singh, AAP's UP in-charge and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said.
After hearing, the high court dismissed the petition as the Speaker had passed the order on BJP MLA's complaint to disqualify the BSP legislators.
"Making a person belonging to Dalit caste as the chief minister of Punjab is nothing but an election stunt. I have come to know through the media today that assembly elections in Punjab will be fought under a non-Dalit leader and not under Channi," Mayawati told newspersons in Lucknow
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.
'People tell us openly that in 2024 we will vote for Modi.'
'Both Modi and Yogi are contesting this election together.' 'Both bring their individual strengths to BJP in UP.'
Protesters led by SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal were shouting slogans against the Congress-led government over several issues including irregularities in the purchase of Fateh kits and alleged diversion of COVID-19 vaccine doses to private hospitals.
Disgruntled Janata Dal-United leader Upendra Kushwaha on Monday resigned from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's party, less than two years after returning to the party, and announced formation of the 'Rashtriya Loktantrik Janata Dal'.
Legislators from Bahujan Samaj Party, Bharatiya Janata Party, Rashtriya Lok Dal, Apna Dal jumped into the Well of the House with placards and banners even before the assembly proceedings started.
A video of the incident which occurred at around 6:25 AM shows a cow darting towards the road when it was hit by the vehicle carrying Ahmed. The cow fell near the road divider. After the incident, the vehicle stopped for a while before resuming the onward journey.