The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday declared 13 candidates from Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha polls including actor Arun Govil, who played Lord Ram in popular TV serial Ramayan, from Meerut, while replacing sitting MP Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit with state minister Jitin Prasada.
As an IAS officer in Kerala, Gyanesh Kumar -- who the Congress described as Amit Shah's 'right hand man' -- had a good working equation with the state's Congress and Left leaders.
Other prominent candidates among the 904 in the fray are Union minister Anurag Thakur, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bharti.
According to Priya Saroj's father SP MLA Tufani Saroj his daughter and Rinku Singh got acquainted through one of her friends whose father is also a cricketer.
Despite the hype over the possible candidature of All India Congress Committee General Secretary Digvijaya Singh for the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat, the Congress has narrowed down its choice to local legislator Ajay Rai and former party MP Rajesh Mishra, with the former emerging as a front runner.
"No material has been placed on record to make the petition triable," the judge said.
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
The PM had paid her a visit last month too before filing his nomination from the parliamentary constituency of Varanasi.
To seek approval for about 2,084 political advertisements in the city, the BJP submitted nearly 517 applications to the poll body from March 13 till May 8, data accessed by PTI showed.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday arrived in the holy city for a month-long campaign and was greeted with posters that accused him of being a 'deserter', an apparent reference to his resignation as Delhi chief minister within 49 days of taking charge.
Modi urged all workers to join the interaction and asked them to share any suggestion or question they may have on his NaMo app.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday named 72 more candidates for the Lok Sabha elections, including Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal and Anurag Singh Thakur, and former chief ministers Manohar Lal Khattar, Trivendra Singh Rawat and Basavaraj Bommai.
'Since the last ten days our own people were spreading canards and propaganada against me and my family.' 'I was upset by this behaviour and I decided that I should not contest this Lok Sabha election.'
Campaigning continues for the final three phases of the Lok Sabha election.
"I am a farmer's son and I was here to raise the voices of farmers and jawans," Tej Bahadur Yadav said.
'It was a disaster on his part to give an oral remark which allowed ascertainment of the religious character of places of worship.' 'This disrupted the social harmony of the country.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a two-day visit to Varanasi to inaugurate the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor project.
Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday expressed confidence of defeating Narendra Modi in Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency in the upcoming elections, saying that he had not chosen a 'safe' seat since his main objective was to beat the BJP's prime ministerial candidate.
Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday asserted that 'something major' will take place, after Lok Sabha results are out, in Bihar where Chief Minister Nitish Kumar seemed to be 'not going along well' with ally Bharatiya Janata Party.
According to an agreement reached after the telephonic conversation between Priyanka Gandhi and Yadav, the Congress has now got seats such as Sitapur and Barabanki.
Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partners Samajwadi Party and Congress on Wednesday announced a tie-up for the Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, with UP's main opposition party leaving 17 out of the 80 seats in the state for the ally.
The people of Amethi want to rectify their 'mistake' of 2019 and Congress workers as well as leaders are demanding that Rahul Gandhi contest from the constituency in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the party's Uttar Pradesh chief Ajay Rai said.
While the locals were welcoming the prime minister, he asked his security personnel to step aside and accepted a 'pagdi' (turban) and a scarf from a man.
Among the cities that have fully implemented their projects are Agra, Varanasi, Madurai, Coimbatore, Udaipur, Pune, Surat, and Vadodara
Varanasi, the high-profile Lok Sabha constituency, says it will vote for hope on Monday.
12 of the 20 MPs with the highest winning margins in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls have not been re-nominated by their parties for the 2024 general elections.
Aiming to retain power at the Centre for the third time in a row, the Bharatiya Janata Party while banking heavily on its sitting MPs on Saturday released the first list of 51 candidates from Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha elections.
INDIA bloc leaders will protest at Jantar Mantar Friday against suspension of MPs and nationwide protests will also be held in all district headquarters against the government's "immoral and illegal" behaviour of this government, the Leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha said.
Ayyakannu, who is also president of the National South Indian Rivers Inter-Linking Farmers Association, said the decision to contest the polls from Uttar Pradesh was to urge the Bharatiya Janata Party to include in their manifesto that their demands, including "profitable prices for farm produce," would be fulfilled.
Sources in various parties suggest that two lakh votes of the Patel community, locally known as OBC kurmi, for which mother-daughter led Apna Dal (S) and Apna Dal (K) are competing and over one lakh of OBC Rajbhars would be crucial in deciding the outcome of the assembly seats in Varanasi.
A senior official of the district administration said about eight lakh lamps were lit on the 84 ghats located on the western bank of the river.
The BJP, which romped to power in 2019 on the back of an unequivocal mandate from UP, winning 62 of its 80 seats, was cut to size this time and had to be content with only 33 seats.
Political parties are getting battle-ready, nominating their best candidates to contest Election 2014... Rediff.com's incomparable Sheela Bhatt begins a new column where she reveals the ground realities in the Battle for India, as only she can. Don't miss it!
Modi polled 5,16,593 votes -- about half of the total votes -- while the Congress's Ajay Rai, and candidates of the Bahujan Samaj Party, Samajwadi Party now run the risk of forfeiting their deposits.
This comes after Gandhi on Tuesday replied to the Lok Sabha Secretariat's notice to vacate his official bungalow, and said he will abide by the notice.
Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar, Rashtriya Lok Dal's Anil Kumar and two Bharatiya Janata Party leaders were sworn in on Tuesday as Yogi Adityanath expanded his council of ministers, weeks ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
The prime minister gave a new slogan "Jahan bimar, wahin upchar (treatment of the ailing at their doorstep)" during his video conference with the healthcare professionals, saying this can bring down the pressure that the second wave of COVID-19 has put on the country's health system.
The prime minister said he was also grateful to his opponents who fought against him. At the same time he lamented there was a sense of political untouchability, adding Bharatiya Janata Party workers were being killed for their ideology in West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala.
Speaking at a rally in Madhya Pradesh's Harda on April 24, Modi praised Chouhan saying the two had served together in the party organisation and also as chief ministers.
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