Nearly 3,000 polling booths have been identified as sensitive, and special security arrangements, including drone surveillance, have been ensured at some of these locations.
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.
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.
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.
The SBSP can impact around 10 Lok Sabha seats and 40 assembly seats in 7-8 districts in Uttar Pradesh, according to poll analysts.
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.
Hindi Diwas was observed across India with leaders emphasizing Hindi's role as a unifying factor and the need to enrich all Indian languages. Events were held in India and abroad to promote the language.
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 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 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.
Yadav said she initially felt like Eklavya in the BJP family but now (with this responsibility) she hopes to work like Arjuna.
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.
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 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.
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.
Kerala had the highest number of average sitting days at 48 days a year, followed by Odisha (41) and Karnataka (35).
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.
While two bodies were recovered on Wednesday, the death toll climbed to four on Thursday after the recovery of two more bodies from the Indira Priyadarshini Hydroelectric project site in Kangra district.
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.
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.
The Dera chief has sought to stay in Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, during the parole period, if granted.
Vijay, despite the loud message from his delayed arrival at the road-show/stampede venue, and more so his continued inaccessibility for fans-turned-cadres after graduating from a super-star to a political party leader with electoral ambitions, refuses to change. Or, so it seems, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
Congress veteran Kapil Sibal had on Wednesday filed his nomination as an SP-backed Independent candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls.
The newly-elected members of Uttar Pradesh Assembly will take oath on April 11-12, while the Speaker would be elected on April 13, official sources said in Lucknow on Thursday.
Chaudhary's jibe comes in the wake of his allegations the BJP has been trying to woo RLD leaders as well as the party chief into the saffron fold ahead of Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
With the Centre blinking on the issue of formation of Telangana, Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh on Thursday decided to revive his demand for Harit Pradesh to be carved out of Uttar Pradesh after the Parliament session.
The revised salaries of MPs are significantly lower than the salaries drawn by top bureaucrats in the country.
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.
Coming down hard on the Election Commission for its response on 'vote theft' allegations, former chief election commissioner S Y Quraishi on Sunday said the poll body should have ordered a probe into Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi's charges instead of 'shouting' at him in a language that was 'objectionable and offensive'.
Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee chief Raj Babbar said, "It has been decided that she will campaign for the party in the state elections. She has accepted our request to campaign. Whenever we will get her schedule, we will use her time accordingly".
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.
Police on Monday stopped the protest march taken out by the Samajwadi Party highlighting the issues in Uttar Pradesh before the monsoon session of the state legislature.
He lashed out at the state government terming it an "extremely sad and inhuman" crime.
On chances of taking uncle Shivpal Yadav's Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party Lohia along in the polls, he said, "I dont have any problem in this. He and his men will be given due honour".
The JD-U insisted that its decision to fight the polls independently will have no impact on its ties with the BJP in Bihar.
Akhilesh Yadav said those who are looking for "profit" in the situation will leave.
Of the 59 assembly constituencies, three have been categorised as 'sensitive' and 590 localities marked as 'vulnerable,' according to the police.
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.
