Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi will start the party's general election campaign in Uttar Pradesh next month from the Congress bastions of Kanpur, Jhansi and Bahraich.
Ahead of the 2019 elections, the race for consolidating the Dalit vote-bank has intensified among all the political parties, more so in Uttar Pradesh, where the community comprises almost 21 per cent of the population.
The SP's bid to dent the BJP's formidable social equation is playing out in a big way in the Poorvanchal or eastern region of Uttar Pradesh as the ruling party is working overtime to keep its caste equation unharmed.
The toll in Uttar Pradesh floods on Monday increased to 48, with reports of 20 more deaths in the state where several rivers were flowing above danger mark posing threat to more than 1,000 villages.
Farmers from Uttar Pradesh and neighbouring states on Tuesday offered 'antim ardas' -- the final prayers in the Sikh tradition -- for the protesters killed in the recent violence in Lakhimpur Kheri, with their leaders vowing to intensify the agitation against the Centre's new agri laws.
Tikait said the minister's son was seen by many people at the spot on the fateful day.
According to the FIR lodged on a complaint of Jagjit Singh, a native of Bahraich district, the episode was 'premeditated' for which the 'conspiracy was hatched' by the minister and his son.
There was heavy police deployment at most of the crossings in the district, around 150 km from Uttar Pradesh's capital city, Lucknow.
The Supreme Court on Friday said it will allow journalist Siddique Kappan, who was detained on October 5 while he was en route to Hathras in Uttar Pradesh, to talk to his ailing mother via video conferencing.
Uttar Pradesh still reeling from the dastardly rapes of two sisters in Badaun was left shocked after another woman was allegedly raped, murdered and hanged from a tree in a village of Bahraich district.
The second list has named 16 candidates from Uttar Pradesh and five from Maharashtra.
At least 28 people have so far lost their lives in rain related incidents in Uttar Pradesh whereas a population of five lakh in some 600 villages of the state has been affected because of it.
But the Congress said its leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will attend the event.
The party has left Mainpuri, described as its "safest" seat, for Mulayam Yadav, who is the MP from Azamgarh right now.
'They (BJP) think that they can do anything in this country. The Constitution is being subverted'
'...if elections were to be held today.' 'The problem is Akhilesh is not very aggressive.' 'Had he started his campaign aggressively six months ago, the picture in UP would have been very different.'
Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra Wednesday met the family members of farmers killed in the violence in Lakhimpur Kheri and promised them all assistance.
The death toll from flood-related incidents rose to 63 today in Uttar Pradesh with the situation remaining grim in several areas, even as most parts of the northern region experienced dry weather with mercury rising by a few notches.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Uttar Pradesh government to submit medical records of journalist Sidhique Kappan who was arrested last year on the way to Hathras where a young Dalit woman had died after being allegedly gang-raped.
inspector said a preliminary examination confirmed an injury on his chin while no other injury is visible.
Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM, which is going to contest next year's Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls on the promise of creating leadership among Muslims, has created unease in the political parties that so far considered the members of the minority community as their core "vote bank".
"Desh ke chowikdar ki pehredari mein, sansadhono ki chori karai ja rahi hai (the country's resources are being looted under the watch of the country's gateman)," she said in a derisive reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde asked the petitioner to amend the petition and observed that they should approach the Allahabad high court for the relief.
Even as the Uttar Pradesh police arrested a journalist and three other people in Mathura while they were on their way to Hathras, home to a Dalit woman who died after being allegedly gang-raped, the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) has filed a habeas corpus petition in the top court against the arrest of the journalist, Sidhique Kappan.
'Economic issues do not matter during elections; it is the emotional connect that helps swing votes.'
In a sudden late Wednesday night development, the Election Commission gave marching orders to 22 district magistrates, 19 district police chiefs and three DIGs of police in Uttar Pradesh.
Journalist Siddique Kappan was arrested on October 5 while he was on his way to Hathras, home to the young Dalit woman who died after being allegedly gang-raped by four upper-caste men.
Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial nominee and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Friday accused the Congress party and the United Progressive Alliance government of conniving with terrorist outfit Indian Mujahideen, suspected to have played a key role behind the serial blasts at his Patna rally last month.
In the first list, over 32,000 refugees have been identified in 21 districts of the state and the exercise is going on in the entire state, State minister Shrikant Sharma added.
Chaudhary, who took 13 hours to reach Lakhimpur Kheri from Delhi, several hours more than it would take to cover the 420 km-odd distance, also met the families of some of the farmer victims to learn their story of loss.
The FIR claimed that police recovered pamphlets "Justice for Hathras victim", six mobiles and a laptop from them, and during the initial probe it was found that they were going to Hathras with an intention "to breach the peace" as part of a "conspiracy".
Kappan was arrested on October 5, 2020 while he was on his way to Hathras, home to the 19-year-old Dalit woman who died after being allegedly gang-raped by four upper-caste men on September 14.
The postmortem report of the 45-year-old woman, whose body was found hanging from a tree in Bahraich on Wednesday, has "not confirmed rape", even as five policemen have been suspended in connection with the case.
In a fresh crackdown on the multi-billion National Rural Health Mission scam, the Central Bureau of Investigation on Friday carried out as many as 30 raids across five different cities in Uttar Pradesh.
Priyanka Gandhi's charge were the key seats of Lucknow, Amethi, Raebareli, Sultanpur, Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Phulpur, Allahabad, Barabanki, and Kushinagar.
The election process got underway in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday with notification for the first phase of Assembly polls which will be a litmus test for Union Minister Beni Prasad Verma and National Commission for Scheduled Caste Chairman PL Punia.
Earlier, the Uttar Pradesh government had told the bench that "shocking findings" have emerged in the investigation so far in the case in which Kappan was arrested on his way to Hathras.
"We state that the most precious fundamental 'right to life' unconditionally embraces even an undertrial. The consideration made herein is keeping in view the peculiar facts and circumstances of this case.
In a bizarre incident a young woman district magistrate has accused one of her attendants a woman home guard of staging some kind of witchcraft with yellow mustard seeds in her official bungalow, with the intent of causing harm to her.
