A man was killed and his brother seriously injured in a clash between two groups over setting up a vegetable stall in Reoti town, Uttar Pradesh.
Congress veteran Kapil Sibal had on Wednesday filed his nomination as an SP-backed Independent candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls.
While police is on the lookout for six people, including local BJP leader Dhirendra Pratap Singh, two have been arrested. Police have detained five others in the case. Besides the eight accused, the first information report also mentions 20-25 unnamed accused of which three people who were later identified as Munna Yadav, Raj Pratap Yadav and Rajan Tewari were arrested on Saturday, Additional SP Sanjay Yadav said.
Rediff reader Rakesh Pandey, 46 from Reoti, Ballia, Utter Pradesh shares his dreams for 2020.
When asked by media about the incident, the BJP leader, who was returning from his village with the police said, "I fired in self-defence and for the security of my family."
Reoti Raman Singh's name figures in the complaint of three BJP MPs, who on the trust vote day displayed bundles of currency notes which they alleged were given to them to abstain on the crucial day to save the Manmohan Singh government.
RLD sources said that the party chief was "taken aback" by the SP's delay in announcing his name as the candidate for the Rajya Sabha elections.
Ashok Chand, deputy comssioner, Crime Branch, told rediff.com on Saturday evening that Reoti Raman Singh, another senior leader of Samajvadi party would be questioned by sleuths at Chanakyapuri Police station.
Rajya Sabha member Amar Singh on Friday appeared before the Delhi Police for questioning in the cash-for-vote scam.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath ordered the suspension of the sub divisional magistrate, circle officer and all other policemen present at the spot in Durjanpur village in Ballia's Reoti area, police said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday claimed to have gathered documentary evidence in the cash for vote scam and has submitted them before the Parliamentary committee probing the matter, its senior leader Arun Jaitley said.
Describing the trust vote as a "suitcase victory" for the government, BJP leader Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday demanded a House Committee probe into allegations of a "cash-for-vote scam" against the ruling UPA.
Sohail Raja Hindustani, who has been summoned by the Parliamentary panel probing the "cash-for-votes" scam on August 18, is the man who got the three Bharatiya Janata Party MPs talk to Samajwadi Party leaders Amar Singh and Reoti Raman Singh before the trust vote in the Lok Sabha. He is an activist of the Bhartiya Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the BJP. The panel wants to ascertain if he had actually masterminded the operation to trap Amar Singh.
Dhirendra Pratap Singh allegedly shot dead Jai Prakash Pal Gama, 46, on Thursday following a quarrel over the allotment of ration shops at Durjanpur village in Ballia's Reoti area. Senior administration and police officials were present at the meeting when the incident took place.
The Uttar Pradesh Police had said on Saturday that it would invoke the stringent National Security Act and Gangster Act against those accused in the killing of the 46-year-old man.
A number of royals have thrown their hat in the ring in the high-voltage Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
The party also nominated six others, including former Union minister Beni Prasad Verma, an influential Kushwaha leader who recently quit Congress and returned to the Samajwadi Party, and realtor Sanjay Seth for the biennial polls scheduled next month.
Some of the expelled youth leaders, close to Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, have already met party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, triggering speculation of their early return to party fold.
This phase of voting was crucial for the state's ruling Samajwadi Party and main opposition Bahujan Samaj Party.
Ruling Samajwadi Party appeared to be headed for a split on Sunday as Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and his party supremo and father Mulayam Singh were engaged in an open face-off, sacking each other's loyalists Shivpal Yadav and Ramgopal Yadav.
A down-to-the-wire contest is likely in some of the seats in the high-stakes Rajya Sabha elections in seven states, especially in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Haryana, where the fate of candidates including senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal and senior lawyer R K Anand is being decided on Saturday.