The election campaign finally ended on Friday, May 17. Arindam Majumder reveals what he discovered on the election front on a long rail journey.
PM said Kovind will make an 'exceptional President'.
In a year of the Yogi Adityanath regime in Uttar Pradesh, the state has witnessed 1,500 police encounter in which 58 criminals have been killed. On July 2, the Supreme Court sought a reply from the UP government on the issue of police encounter killings after advocate Sanjay Parekh appearing for the People's Union for Civil Liberties pointed out that gross human rights violations were being carried out through these killings under the Adityanath rule. Speaking to Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com, PUCL's advocate Sanjay Parekh said that police encounters are not permissible in a democracy.
'These people are not concerned about Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christian -- they are only concerned about being in power,' Akhilesh Yadav tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih in his first interview after the election results.
The BJP's manifesto for UP elections promised many things. But, given the state's precarious financial position, fulfilling these promises is likely to prove tricky, says Ishan Bakshi.
Akhilesh said people feel that they have been misled (by the BJP) for forming the government.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, vice president Rahul Gandhi, Left parties and CMs of various states congratulated Kovind.
'The Godse controversy may have helped Kamal Haasan reach out to a larger audience, both inside the state and outside, coming as it does when the main campaign for elections 19 is over and only those in the four assembly bypoll constituencies are drudging along,' says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'The CM was in Gorakhpur when this attempt to murder took place on my brother.' 'I waited for two days to see what action the police takes, but after 48 hours, the police has not even questioned Paswan.'
'For short-term gain, the BJP makes extraordinary promises, they take extraordinary decisions, but in the long term it is going to impact both them and the country.'
'Probably only Sonia-ji knows the extent of what he is doing.'
'Emboldened by the BJP victory, the upper castes feel they must assert themselves and regain dominance over the rural power structure.'
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'If ever there was a decisive moment in the history of the Supreme Court where it has been under attack by the Executive, and the judges have boldly stood up for independence of the Judiciary, that time was now.' 'These four judges did a brilliant thing, they set an example.' 'They showed that they were fulfilling their duty to the Constitution and to God.' 'Don't allow fear to dictate your actions was their message.'
He also dismissed as 'a mere eye wash' the house arrest of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba chief Hafiz Saeed.
The Union Health ministry put the number of positive cases at 82, eight more since Thursday night, which includes the woman and a 76-year-old man from Karnataka who became the country's first coronavirus fatality besides 17 foreign nationals, Health Ministry officials said.
'Nitish is now a helpless junior ally of Hindutva.' 'He just cannot think of reining in the hoodlums raging, marauding and killing in the mohallas,' argues Mohammad Sajjad.
