Families of two West Bengal women killed in a stampede at the Maha Kumbh Mela have alleged that they were handed over the bodies without death certificates. They received only a piece of paper mentioning that the body was given to them. The victims, Basanti Poddar and Urmila Bhuniya, were killed in the pre-dawn stampede on January 29. A senior West Bengal minister alleged that "total mismanagement" prevailed in the Maha Kumbh Mela.
The counting began at 8 am to decide the fate of the candidates contesting the polls, among whom all eyes will be on Dimple Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav's elder daughter-in-law and the wife of Akhilesh Yadav, who is contesting from the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, necessitated by the demise of Samajwadi Party veteran Mulayam Singh Yadav in October.
Samajwadi Party MLA Abu Asim Azmi, suspended from the Maharashtra assembly over his remarks praising Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, will be '100 per cent' put in jail, Chief Minister Minister Devendra Fadnavis said in the legislative council.
The minister's remarks came a day after Assembly Speaker Vijender Gupta wrote to chief secretary Dharmendra over Delhi government officials allegedly not responding to letters, phone calls or messages by the MLAs.
The answer is to be found in the rise of the global south and in particular, the rise of China, explains Aakar Patel.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and several prominent faces among 676 candidates are contesting on 57 seats spread across 10 districts in the state.
Shubham Dwivedi, a 31-year-old businessman from Kanpur who was killed in the Pahalgam terror attack, was cremated at his native village with full state honours on Thursday morning. The cremation was attended by Uttar Pradesh Cabinet ministers Yogendra Upadhyay and Rakesh Sachan, who placed wreaths on Dwivedi's mortal remains and offered their condolences to the bereaved family. A guard of honour was also presented to the departed soul. Dwivedi, who got married to Ashanya on February 12, was among the 26 persons, mostly tourists, who were killed on Tuesday at Baisaran meadow near Pahalgam in Anantnag district in one of the most gruesome attacks targeting civilians in Kashmir in a long time.
BSP chief Mayawati removed her nephew Akash Anand from all party posts and said that she will not name her successor till she is alive. In a slew of other significant changes in the BSP leadership announced at a high-level meeting of the party's office-bearers from across the country, Mayawati appointed her brother Anand Kumar and Ramji Gautam as national coordinators. Mayawati also criticized the budgets of both the central and Uttar Pradesh governments, saying they were "unrealistic" and detached from ground realities.
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar appear to have got the maximum representation in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new council of ministers, while assembly poll-bound Maharashtra also found a significant presence.
'If inner line permit was in place in Meghalaya, the details of the three people who allegedly murdered Raja would have been on record.'
The revised salaries of MPs are significantly lower than the salaries drawn by top bureaucrats in the country.
Uddhav Thackeray criticized BJP MP Nishikant Dubey for his controversial remarks amid the Marathi-Hindi language row, accusing him of trying to divide people and disturb harmony.
The constitution of a committee by the Centre to explore the feasibility of "one nation, one election" has opened up the possibility of Lok Sabha polls being advanced so that they could be held with a string of state assembly polls.
There is no confusion or dispute in the 'Mahagathbandhan' over Tejashwi Yadav being the main face for the Bihar chief minister's post, Congress leader Kanhaiya Kumar said on Friday while asserting that the CM will be from the Rashtriya Janata Dal if the alliance gets a majority in the upcoming polls.
Yadav said she initially felt like Eklavya in the BJP family but now (with this responsibility) she hopes to work like Arjuna.
Mayawati said it became necessary for her to make the announcement as the Congress and some other parties, as part of a "conspiracy", are allegedly trying to create an impression that they would be forging an alliance with the BSP.
Tiwari said that all the preparations have been made for the first phase of the polls and all the polling parties have left for their respective polling centers.
The SBSP can impact around 10 Lok Sabha seats and 40 assembly seats in 7-8 districts in Uttar Pradesh, according to poll analysts.
The mahant, Raju Das, said that burning of pages from the Ramcharitmanas by the Akhil Bharatiya OBC Mahasabha in Lucknow on Sunday too was Maurya' work.
He lashed out at the state government terming it an "extremely sad and inhuman" crime.
The Dera chief has sought to stay in Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, during the parole period, if granted.
Zafar Ali, the president of the Shahi Jama Masjid committee in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, was arrested on Sunday in connection with the violence that erupted in November 2022 over a court-ordered survey of the mosque. Ali's brother alleged that the arrest was intended to prevent him from submitting his testimony before a judicial commission investigating the violence. The mosque has been at the center of a controversy after a petition claimed it was the site of an ancient Hindu temple. The violence resulted in four deaths and several injuries.
The cumulative seizure of such illegal inducements in the five poll-going states -- Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab -- stood at Rs 1,039.50 crore, the sources said, adding that it included drugs worth Rs 571.34 crore.
While the BJP went back to the drawing board to recraft its political and governance outreach and regained momentum by notching up surprisingly big wins in a string of assembly polls, the burst of fresh optimism in the main opposition Congress and other INDIA bloc parties fizzled out.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday alleged a 'well-planned' conspiracy by the Bharatiya Janata Party for the violence in Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal, where a team of Congress MPs led by Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to visit on December 4 amid restrictions imposed by the district administration.
The results for bypolls to seven assembly seats in six states will be declared on Friday in what is being seen as a major test for the opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance ahead of the polls in five states later this year and Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
Kerala had the highest number of average sitting days at 48 days a year, followed by Odisha (41) and Karnataka (35).
The duo has been victorious multiple times from Sultanpur and Pilibhit. In the recent rejig of the BJP national executive committee, the two were also dropped from that list.
A visibly upset Shivpal Yadav said, "I was never called to any meeting (of the SP) and no information was given to me."
Samajwadi Party MLA Abdullah Azam Khan was disqualified from the Uttar Pradesh assembly on Wednesday, an official said, days after a court sentenced him to two-year imprisonment in a 15-year-old case.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress's alliance in Uttar Pradesh came under scrutiny as both parties did not hold a single joint campaign for the bypolls to nine assembly seats. While both parties maintained that the alliance is strong, BJP ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) claimed a crack in the alliance. The Congress opted out of the bypolls and announced coordination committees for all nine seats to support the SP. However, the absence of joint rallies raised questions about the alliance's strength. The SP campaign was spearheaded by its chief Akhilesh Yadav, while the Congress cited its leaders' busy schedules in Maharashtra and Jharkhand for the lack of joint campaigns. The bypoll results will be announced on November 23.
While assembly polls in Goa and Uttarakhand were completed in a single phase, for Uttar Pradesh, Monday was the second of a seven-phase election.
The Election Commission of India has set up more than 200 polling stations within housing societies in the urban areas of Uttar Pradesh to increase the voter turnout in the politically crucial state.
'The Election Commission's involvement in the avoidable SIR controversy has carried a message down to the last voter -- who just does not like it,' observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
People of Maharashtra have always strived to maintain communal harmony, said Pawar.
The Rampur assembly seat in Uttar Pradesh which fell vacant following the disqualification of SP leader Mohammad Azam Khan is one of the five seats going for the bypolls.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath appeared to make a pitch in the assembly for a temple where a mosque stands now in Mathura, saying that Krishna Kanhaiya wouldn't have it any other way.
Akhilesh Yadav said those who are looking for "profit" in the situation will leave.
The opposition, which had earlier accepted defeat, is again jumping around today, the UP CM said.
Bypolls to 10 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh will be a litmus test for the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA)'s unity after the group's success in the recent Lok Sabha polls when they won more than 40 seats, significantly contributing to the Bharatiya Janata Party's failure to win a simple majority in parliament.
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