Campaigning in 49 Assembly seats in seven districts of eastern UP, which go to the polls in the sixth phase on March 4, will come to a close today. Among the constituencies in focus are SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Azamgarh Lok Sabha constituency, Gorakhpur, the Lok Sabha constituency of BJP leader Yogi Adityanath, and Mau, where jailed gangster-turned-MLA Mukhtar Ansari is in the fray. This phase will also cover certain districts bordering Nepal. Around 1.72 crore voters, including 94.60 lakh male and 77.84 lakh female, are eligible to decide the fate of 635 candidates. The districts going to polls in the sixth phase are Mau, Maharajganj, Kushinagar, Gorakhpur, Deoria, Azamgarh and Ballia.
2) Members of the Jat community will gather at Jantar Mantar in the Capital on Thursday to decide on the future course of action regarding its ongoing agitation in Haryana for quota in government jobs and educational institutions. A memorandum on "injustice" meted out to Jats by the state government will be submitted to President Pranab Mukherjee, Yashpal Malik, the president of the All India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti, which is leading the stir in Haryana, said.
3) Canara Bank’s Rs 1,124-crore rights issue will open on Thursday and the proceeds will be utilised to fund business growth. The bank will issue over 5,42,99,105 equity shares of face value of Rs 10 each for cash at Rs 207 per scrip (including a premium) for an aggregate amount of up to Rs 1,123.99 crore to the existing investors. The issue will close on March 16.
4) Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu will inaugurate the new assembly buildings in Velagapudu IGC on March 2. Speaker Kodeala Sivaprasad and the legislative affairs minister, Yanamala Rama Krishunudu, occupied offices in the new buildings on February 27. Yanamala will allot the ‘Peshis’ to the Leader of the House, Leader of the opposition, ministers and others.
5) Amid widespread condemnation for their hooliganism, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parisad (ABVP), student wing of the BJP, is to take out a fresh round of peaceful demonstrations on March 2 to restore peace in the Delhi University campus. The violence in the university campus began with an invitation by the Ramjas College literary society to JNU student Umar Khalid, to speak at a seminar on Cultures of Protest on February 21. When the college’s student union, dominated by the ABVP, objected, Khalid’s invitation was withdrawn. Some students then took out a march in the college during which a fight broke out.