According to poll observers, there are about 3.88 lakh voters in Rampur assembly constituency and of them, about 2.27 lakh, about 60 per cent, are Muslims.
Opposition parties demanded that all elections in the future be held through ballot papers.
A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com visited many polling booths in Varanasi on polling day. This is what he discovered.
Additional Superintendent of Police (city), Etawah, Prashant Kumar Prasad is heard telling a senior over the phone, "Sir, I have been slapped. BJP workers have also brought bombs."
With the D-day for the polls drawing closer, Modi upped the ante against the Siddaramaiah government addressing four back to back rallies at Gadag, Tumakuru, Shivamogga and Mangaluru.
The state on Thursday reported 104 deaths and 22,439 fresh cases, pushing the fatality count to 9,480 and the total infection number to 7,66,360.
Hitting back at the Shiv Sena, Maharashtra Bharatiya Janata Party leader Devendra Fadnavis on Monday said the Uddhav Thackeray-led outfit's Hindutva is merely on paper and finds mention just in speeches, while it was his party men who faced bullets and lathis during the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.
Gandhi had on Saturday said that the Congress reached out to the BSP leader, offering her the chief minister's post for contesting the assembly polls together, but she did not respond.
When it comes to the Congress and Wayanad, the only way the scepticism in the minds of some in Kerala may be addressed is by the Gandhi family proving that they are more than a passing caravan in town, reports Shyam G Menon.
Veering towards conceding the demand for a separate Telangana, the Congress has convened a meeting of its working committee, the party's highest policy-making body, on Tuesday after deliberations on the issue in the United Progressive Alliance coordination committee.
The prime minister said youths should be made "ambassadors" of the Union government's public welfare works and good governance.
Shahs also said that his party will strive to rid the state of its 'Bimaru' tag as development is the way forward in Indian politics now.
A total of 3.32 crore voters will be eligible to cast their ballots at 36,269 polling booths and 11,389 polling stations.
Governments in most of the world saw their approval ratings dip as they struggled to contain the raging virus, which hit economy hard everywhere, but Indian politics followed a different script, with the outgoing year marking further shrinking of a rudderless Congress while the ruling BJP soared riding on Modi's enduring appeal.
Tens of thousands of farmers gathered in Muzaffarnagar town on Friday to attend a mahapanchayat in support of the Bharatiya Kisan Union-led protest against the Centre's new farm laws in Ghazipur on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Uttar Pradesh, said the state has taken several steps to contain the spread of coronavirus but to "lockdown five cities by a judicial order may not be the right approach".
Mamata Banerjee predicts the BJP-led NDA will not get more than 150 seats in the next Lok Sabha election.
The Jat vote is crucial in winning at least 40 assembly seats in Western UP, which has been in the grip of a widespread farmer movement, reports Nitin Kumar.
Notwithstanding the claims and counterclaims of different political parties about riding the crest of a populatiry wave in Uttar Pradesh, Tuesday's results of the three bypolls out of the 403 state assembly seats have sprung surprises for all key political players.
Sources said the opposition parties would look to avoid the prickly leadership question as of now and emphasise on building a common ground.
Western UP contributes nearly 70 seats to the 402-member UP assembly. In 2017, the BJP had swept the region. Every pre-2022 poll survey had suggested the party would face its biggest attrition from this region because of the farmers' groups.
With no apparent wave on the ground or pressing everyday issues, that's what it boils down for voters as Rajasthan readies for assembly polls this week.
Priyanka said the party's fight will continue till the laws are scrapped.
Daulatpuria, who had joined the party ahead of 2019 assembly polls after switching over from Indian National Lok Dal, announced his decision at a Panchayat held at his village Daulatpur. Talking to reporters later, he said the three agriculture laws "are anti-farmer which should be repealed immediately".
While the term of 288-member Maharashtra assembly ends on November 9, that of the 90-member Haryana assembly expires on November 2.
After a series of defeats since 2012, the results of the recent panchayat polls are being seen by her as a tide changer for the upcoming UP assembly elections
Voting will be held on Thursday in bypolls to seven assembly seats in six states -- a contest symbolic of the fierce turf war between the Bharatiya Janata Party and regional parties.
Union Minister Mahesh Sharma on Thursday said the brutal killing of 50-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq in Dadri by a mob for 'suspected' storing and consuming beef "should be considered an accident and no communal colour should be added to it."
On possible alliances for the upcoming state polls, the SP president said, "Doors of our party are open for all small parties. Many smaller parties are already with us. More will come with us."
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday attacked the Uttar Pradesh government over the death of a Kanpur businessman in a police raid, claiming that the case is linked to an extortion racket and "someone" is trying to save himself.
Khushi Dubey, Hari Shankar Tiwari and Mata Prasad Pandey represent the resentment among Brahmins towards the Adityanath government. Radhika Ramaseshan reports.
With a rise in the clout of Muslims in western Uttar Pradesh, fearful Hindus are being radicalised.
Here are some of the big political leaders' who await their fate on Monday.
'Charging that some main political parties are trying to "dangerously" disturb the communal harmony in Uttar Pradesh ahead of Lok Sabha polls, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Monday warned such forces of stringent action.
Chief ministers and other senior leaders made last-minute appeals to voters for their support in Mokama and Gopalganj of Bihar, Adampur of Haryana, Manugoda of Telangana, Gola Gorakhnath of Uttar Pradesh and Dhamnagar of Odisha.
Vikas Dubey, who met with a gory end in an encounter with the UP Special Task Force near Kanpur on Friday, conjured the image of a typical don who dabbled in real-estate, won a district-level election and rubbed shoulders with political figures.
'I don't need to go out now. I don't have to buy votes. My workers are campaigning for me, visiting villages. I know people in every village and their issues,' says the 78-year-old leader.
The BJP's bucket list this time includes districts such as Sultanpur, Aligarh, Firozabad, Deoband, Ghazipur, Basti and Mirzapur -- to rename a few. Virendra Singh Rawat reports.
The party president also said that India's self-confidence, pride and scale of ambition have grown manifold in three years.
'It was a deliberate conspiracy. The mob targeted large houses, burning down ACs, fridges, almirahs and furniture.'
