Most of the candidates of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen have not been able to cross the 5,000-mark in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, according to poll trends on Thursday.
A man was shot dead in police firing in Telangana's Secunderabad, trains went up in flames, and public and private vehicles attacked, as railway stations and highways turned into battleground in many states on Friday amid burgeoning protests against Agnipath, the contentious defence recruitment scheme.
The Northern Railways said it has cancelled around 17 trains and diverted around 12 others, while traffic has been suspended at four locations due to waterlogging.
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.
Despite Mayawati's pre-poll claims that her Bahujan Samaj Party would spring a surprise in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, the party was leading in only three of the 403 seats in the state, trends showed Thursday.
In Kanpur, that witnessed stone pelting and violence on June 3, people from the Muslim community participated in the prayers in all major mosques while the police personnel remained on alert.
It was becoming difficult for him to continue working in the Samajwadi Party, he told reporters, without elaborating.
Candidates contesting from Kunda (in Pratapgarh), Malhani (in Jaunpur), and Rasara (in Ballia) failed to secure enough votes to prevent forfeiture of their deposits.
MV Ganga Vilas will begin its journey from Varanasi and sail around 3,200 km in 51 days to reach Dibrugarh in Assam via Bangladesh, traversing across 27 river systems in the two countries, it said.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday sought to defend his widely criticised statement equating Muhammad Ali Jinnah with Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru and saying they helped India get freedom even as an Uttar Pradesh minister suggested a narco test for him for 'glorifying' the founder of Pakistan.
Alleging discrimination between protesters on the basis of religion by the administration, the Jamiat Uleme-e-Hind on Monday said if Muslims protest then it is an "unforgivable crime" while those involved in violent protests over the Centre's Agnipath scheme were let off lightly.
The districts where polling is being held on Thursday are Ambedkar Nagar, Balrampur, Siddharth Nagar, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria and Ballia.
Rajesh Pandey, a resident of Chitrauli locality of Janpur Mudiyari Gram Panchayat of Bansdih Kotwali area of the district, returned to India from Afghanistan on August 23.
The Railways cancelled 234 trains while 340 trains have been affected so far due to protests against the Agnipath scheme for recruitment in the defence services, the Railways said on Friday.
Rediff reader Rakesh Pandey, 46 from Reoti, Ballia, Utter Pradesh shares his dreams for 2020.
Ansari said the Muslim community is now shedding the 'illusion' created by opposition parties like the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress.
The Act prohibits conversion of any place of worship and to provide for the maintenance of the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947.
Heavy overnight rains in Uttar Pradesh on Friday led to the deaths of at least 22 people, including nine labourers who were buried alive under the debris when an under-construction wall in the state capital collapsed on their huts.
Only traces of rainfall were recorded in a few areas of the national capital on Thursday which continued to experience sultry weather.
According to the findings of the CSDS-Lokniti survey, the BJP saw a marginal increase in its support among the Muslim voters as compared to the 2017 assembly elections.
SP and SBSP leaders had shared the dais in Mau on Wednesday and announced that they would together trounce the BJP in the 2022 elections.
When the BSP formed a government in Uttar Pradesh in 2007, it had bagged 206 seats and a vote share of 30.43 per cent.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued notices to the Union Jal Shakti Ministry, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, after receiving complaints about several bodies found floating in the Ganga river in the two states.
Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party's working committee member Ram Iqbal Singh on Thursday said there would have been no agitation by farmers had the Centre consulted them before enacting the new agricultural laws.
The speculation gained strength after the sulking socialist leader Shivpal Yadav recently met Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath amid reports of strains in the SP-led alliance.
The city magistrate has been asked to conduct an inquiry and action will be taken against those found guilty.
Superintendent of Police, Baghpat, Abhishek Singh said 10 policemen of Binauli police station have been relieved of their duties and attached to police lines.
Nishad said he will meet senior BJP leaders, including Amit Shah, in Delhi on Monday to finalise the constituencies where the party will field its candidates.
In a special campaign from April 2017 till July 2021, 13,801 cases were lodged under the Gangster Act and 43,294 accused arrested, while the National Security Act was invoked against 630 people, Additional Director General of Police, Law and Order, Prashant Kumar said.
Criticising the handling of the COVID-19 crisis in Uttar Pradesh, a ruling party leader has claimed that at least 10 people died in every village during the second wave as no lessons were learnt from the first one.
The nodal officer for EVMs in Varanasi, a returning officer (RO) in Sonbhadra district and an additional election officer in Bareilly district have been pulled out from election duties, a day ahead of the counting of votes in UP.
'He felt that he had no place in the BJP and he was wrong.'
'By calling names and using unparliamentary language, they are trying to divert people's attention from the issues of electricity, water, and income.'
At least 40 pilgrims were on Monday killed when a tractor trolley carrying them overturned in a waterlogged ditch in Nagra area of Ballia district in Uttar Pradesh.
The TMC chief had said that she would never allow the Centre to conduct a similar exercise in West Bengal.
Surendra Singh said that children should not be given undue freedom and asked parents not to give mobile phones to them.
Trains were set afire and blocked, and public vehicles attacked as protests over 'Agnipath' swept across several places in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Jammu on Thursday amid partisan political voices in favour and against the new recruitment scheme for the defence forces that has set off a firestorm.
'This is the filthy RSS male chauvinist mentality at work. Men do the raping but women need to be taught good values'
An eight-month-old baby admitted to district hospital in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh died on Wednesday after a rickshaw-puller allegedly gave him an injection and police has registered a first information report against three persons in this connection.
