The results for the five state will be declared on March 10. (Representational)2022 Assembly Election Updates Punjab Election, UP Chunav News: Election Commission of India on Friday said that more than Rs 1000 crores seizures have been done during ongoing elections in the five states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa. The seizures consisted of items such as cash, liquor, drugs, precious metals and other kinds of freebies.
Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel on Thursday slammed the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh over the stray cattle menace and asked farmers to leave them at Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s residence. The Chattisgarh chief minister visited the Gorakhnath temple here before canvassing for Congress candidate of Gorakhpur (rural) seat Devendra Nishad, PTI reported.
Meanwhile, speaking at a rally in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi district, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “Parivarvaadis are so far from ground reality that they can’t see what’s happening. They want to come to power to increase their family’s stature and rule over you like kings. Our power isn’t about the mafia, but about the public.” Meanwhile, Congress leaders Priyanka Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi are set to hold a joint-public meeting in Amethi today.
The fourth phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections on Wednesday recorded nearly 60 per cent polling, according to Election Commission’s data that was last updated at 9.30 pm. Spread over nine districts, the 59 constituencies had in the previous Assembly election seen a turnout of 62.55 per cent, and, in the Lok Sabha polls, recorded 60.03 per cent voting.
Home Minister Amit Shah, and BSP chief Mayawati during their campaigns in UP. (Photos: PTI)
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday trained his guns on the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, accusing them of promoting "mafia raj" in Uttar Pradesh during their rule as he campaigned for BJP candidates in Pratapgarh.
Though he was addressing an election rally in Rampur Khas, from where veteran Congress leader Pramod Tiwari's daughter Aradhna Mishra is seeking a third consecutive win, Shah only made a passing reference to the Congress while talking about ending Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir.
The SP and the BSP were the target of his attacks, signalling the BJP is not counting the grand old party much in the ongoing high-decibel electoral battle for Uttar Pradesh, where the fifth round of voting is scheduled this Sunday.
"For 70 years, SP, BSP and Congress had been feeding Article 370 like a child in their lap which kept Kashmir divided from us. (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi-ji's government came to power and on August 5, 2019, PM Modi struck down Article 370,” Shah said. (PTI)
BJP supporters greeted Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath with the slogan of “Bulldozer Baba zindabad” as he held his roadshow here on Friday in support of his Cabinet colleague Sidharth Nath Singh's candidature from City (West) assembly seat.
Nearly two-km-long roadshow of the chief minister starting from Karbala Chauraha and ending at Nakhash Kona Chauraha of the city was attended by “lakhs” of people, eyewitnesses said.
During the entire roadshow, which started at 5 pm and ended at 6 pm, people carrying the BJP's saffron flags rent the air with slogans of “Jai Shri Ram” and Bulldozer Baba Zindabad".
The new term for the chief minister was first heard from Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, who, in a YouTube video, has claimed that a prestigious English daily has changed Yogi Adityanath's name to Baba Bulldozer. The term purportedly owes its origin to the extensive use of bulldozers by the Uttar Pradesh government for demolishing illegal properties of criminals in the state. (PTI)
A court here on Friday rejected Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia's regular bail plea, a day after he was remanded in judicial custody following his surrender before a court in connection with a drug case.
Majithia was remanded in judicial custody for two weeks by the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Sandeep Kumar Singla. The Akali leader, who was on Thursday evening taken to a Patiala jail, had moved the bail plea, which was taken up by the Mohali court on Friday.
"The court on Friday rejected the regular bail plea," said Arshdeep Singh Kaler, one of Majithia's counsels. "We will appeal before the High Court now," he said.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) had earlier called the registration of the FIR against Majithia as “political vendetta” and said three DGPs and three Directors of Bureau of Investigation were changed and police officers were allegedly coerced to falsely implicate the leader. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the case had questioned Majithia for over an hour in the court complex in Mohali on Thursday. (PTI)
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath campaigning during in Prayagraj said that unemployment rate in the state during 2017 was around 18% and now it is less than 2%.
Further, announcing that BJP will win the UP polls, the CM said, " After the fourth phase of polls, BJP is close to majority mark. By the end of all seven phases, we'll cross the mark of 300 seats and form our government again."
Election Commission of India on Friday said that more than Rs 1000 crores seizures have been done during ongoing elections in the five states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa.
The campaign for 61 assembly seats across 12 districts of Uttar Pradesh going to the polls during the fifth phase of the state assembly elections ended on Friday evening. The voting for the fifth phase of state assembly elections will be held on February 27.
State's Chief Election Officer Ajay Kumar Shukla said the campaign for the fifth phase ended at 6 pm and all preparations for the voting on Sunday have been completed. There are a total of 692 candidates are in the fray for the fifth phase of polling and their fate will be decided by 2.24 crore voters.
The districts going to the polls on Sunday include Sultanpur, Chitrakoot, Pratapgarh, Kaushambi, Prayagraj, Barabaki, Bahraich, Shravasti and Gonda.
Amethi and Raebareli, once considered as Congress bastions, Ayodhya, the epicentre of movement for the construction of Lord Ram temple too go to the polls on Sunday. (PTI)
The silver dust after the euphoria of the Tokyo Olympics success of Saikhom Mirabai Chanu has long settled in this tiny village made famous by the weightlifter.
Now, as election fever hits here too, the roadside camps of candidates belonging to parties such as Congress, BJP and JD(U) gather dust every time a vehicle passes through the pothole-riddled single lane inter-village road.
For the locals, the upcoming assembly polls are the last opportunity before another cycle of "neglect" sets off, to remind all those who made tall promises while felicitating Chanu to deliver, with drinking water supply and poor road condition topping the litany of woes.
"In our village, we don't have drinking water supply, not even pipelines. So, for our family, we buy drinking water for around Rs 1,000 every month from water tanker operators," Chanu's mother Saikhom Tombi told PTI. (PTI)
The Supreme Court Friday asked Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu to file response within two weeks on an application which has said that his conviction in an over 32-year-old road rage case should not have been merely for the lesser offence of voluntarily causing hurt.
The apex court was hearing a matter pertaining to review of sentence awarded by it in May 2018 to the cricketer-turned-politician in the 1988 road rage case.
Though the top court had in May 2018 held Sidhu guilty of the offence of 'voluntarily causing hurt' to a 65-year-old man, it spared him of a jail term and imposed a fine of Rs 1,000.
Later in September 2018, the apex court agreed to examine a review petition filed by the family members of the deceased and had issued notice, restricted to the quantum of sentence. The matter came up for hearing before a bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and S K Kaul. (PTI)
BJP and Samajwadi Party workers on Friday clashed over parking of a vehicle in Godhna Belbharia village of Payagpur assembly constituency, police here said. SP district unit president Ram Harsh Yadav claimed some of his party supporters were injured in the incident.
According to Additional Superintendent of Police (Nagar) Kunwar Gyananjay Singh, the scuffle started when supporters of one of the groups while campaigning parked their vehicles on a roadside, which was objected to by the other group. Soon both sides began pelting stones at each other, damaging a number of vehicles in the duel, said the ASP. Both the sides have filed FIRs against each other under serious criminal sections, he said.
The SP has filed a complaint against three people, including against Nishank Tripathi, son of BJP candidate and MLA Subhash Tripathi, and over 12 unnamed others. The BJP too has filed a complaint against two men, including Balendra Srivastava, brother of former MLA and SP candidate Mukesh Srivastava, and 12 others. (PTI)
Union minister Smriti Irani while campaigning at a rally in Uttar Pradesh's Amethi said, "I want to assure people that BJP is forming the government and once our government forms, we'll provide free scooties to all the meritorious girls."
Mukesh Sahani, whose Vikassheel Insaan Party is an ally of the BJP in Bihar, has said that ousting the BJP from power in Uttar Pradesh is his main goal and called upon his party workers to support strong contenders from among the SP, BSP or the Congress in seats where they do not have a candidate.
"Our fight is with Delhi and our main goal is to provide reservation to the Nishad community.... Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah make the promise in every election, but they forget about it once election gets over," Sahani, a minister in the Bihar government, said.
"When we oust the Yogi Adityanath government from power in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP will realise that the Nishad community does not support it anymore," he told reporters here Thursday evening. The Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), which is part of the BJP-led ruling coalition in Bihar, has fielded candidates in 55-odd seats in Uttar Pradesh where assembly elections are underway.
"Removing the BJP from power in the ongoing Uttar Pradesh assembly elections is the main aim. We have asked our party office-bearers to support strong contenders from among the SP, BSP and the Congress in the seats where there is no candidate of our party," Sahani said. He said he has full confidence that once defeated in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP will be compelled to give reservation to the Nishad community before the next Lok Sabha elections in 2024. (PTI)
'Behen ji' is the head of the family and the family is all of us, a group of Jatav men at Sandaha village say, asserting that their vote to Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party is not tied to its fortunes in any election but to keep the party strong.
"If we don't vote it, then who will," Vishal Kumar, who studies in an NIT in Karnataka, asks in a pointer to the largest Dalit community, who are estimated to number nearly 11-12 per cent in Uttar Pradesh, being the most loyal supporters of the party.
From the state's western edges neighbouring Delhi to its eastern part, the BSP appears to be holding a big chunk of its core votes but yet there are signs that some of them are considering other options, with the Samajwadi Party being seen as a main challenger to the BJP in most of the seats in the elections to the 403-member assembly.
At several places, young members of the community criticise the BJP for a lack of employment opportunities, showing an inclination towards Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav. (PTI)
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi while campaiging in Uttar Pradesh's Amethi hit out the BJP government over the issue of Un employement. In his speech he said that the backbone of India's employment sector has been broken by PM Narendra Modi &his friends.
"You'll see in the coming times, youth of this country won't get employment, teach them however much you want. No one listened to me during COVID, but you saw bodies in Ganga," the Congress MP said.
Aradhana Mishra is riding on the popularity of her father and old Congress warhorse Pramod Tiwari to retain the Rampur Khas assembly seat in the Uttar Pradesh elections. But this time the battle is tough with the belligerent BJP determined to tumble the Congress fort after 42 years. Mishra had won the Rampur Khas seat in a by-election in 2014 and then again in the 2017 assembly polls, continuing from her father who has been a legislator from the constituency for consecutive nine terms since 1980. (PTI)
BSP president Mayawati on Friday said it is a good sign that issues like inflation, unemployment and law and order are now dominating the election scene, and rival parties now find the going tough. On the last day of campaigning for the fifth phase of Uttar Pradesh polls, the BSP chief said her party is contesting the elections on the issues concerning the common people and to bring "good" days of her government back and provide relief to them. (PTI)
The Ram temple issue, which used to pivot elections not only here but across the country, seems to have been relegated to "one of the poll issues" in Ayodhya this time as competing parties are raking up development topics and also relying on caste arithmetic for victory.
The BJP, for whom the temple town sharpened its Hindutva plank, is facing a challenge particularly from the Samajwadi Party (SP) in the ongoing state polls. With 10 candidates in fray, the Ayodhya Assembly segment will go to vote in the fifth phase on February 27. (PTI)
Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra holds a roadshow in Prayagraj.
Taking a jibe at Opposition leaders in Uttar Pradesh, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said: "Results of last four phases of the UP Assembly polls will come on March 10, but all Opposition leaders have booked a ticket to go out of UP for March 11... BSP elephant's stomach is so big that the whole state's ration was consumed by them." (ANI)
UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday offered prayers at the Ram Janmabhoomi site in Ayodhya.
Mayawati on Thursday sought to quash speculation over the possibility of a post-poll tie-up with the ruling BJP, saying her BSP was not the B team of any party and the rivals were trying to mislead her supporters.
The speculation was triggered by a recent remark by Union Home Minister that Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party remained "relevant" in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls and will get Dalit votes. Mayawati had responded by saying that it was Shah's "magnanimity" that he acknowledged this but added that the BSP will also get the votes of other communities. (PTI)