Asad Rehman

Senior Samajwadi Party leader and Rampur MP Azam Khan, who like Akhilesh won in the Assembly polls, has also sent his resignation from Lok Sabha to the Speaker's office, sources close to him said. Khan is currently in jail on criminal charges.

Masood Ahmad tells SP to stop looking at Muslims as ‘majboor voters’.

One of the changes in the BSP was the nomination of Mayawati's nephew Akash Anand as the sole national coordinator of the party. Her brother Anand Kumar remains the No. 2 as national vice-president of the BSP.

'The BJP has been successful in misleading people based on its religious agenda. And wherever the party was successful in doing so, it won. In places where they could not do this, they faced big defeats.'

Among the prominent Muslim MLAs were Azam Khan, his son Abdullah Azam Khan, jailed-gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari’s son Abbas, and nephew Suhaib.

Akhilesh put up the only challenge to the BJP, drawing crowds, shutting out in-house family squabbling contenders, and trying to distance himself from the “goondaism” baggage of his last government.

Uttar Pradesh Election Results 2022, UP Assembly Election Result 2022 Highlights: Calling it a ‘festival of democracy’, Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked the voters for their mandate in favour of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh and three other states — one he described as “jeet ka chauka”.

The poll body also announced the suspension of three poll officials in Uttar Pradesh, amid allegations of irregularities by the Samajwadi Party.

Many of the accused have received notices to appear before the Claims Tribunal and asked to submit their objection to the allegation that they were involved in damaging public property.

Seeking to expand its base beyond Muslims and Yadavs, the SP has tied up with parties representing non-Yadav OBCs in the state, like Rajbhars.

The seventh and final phase of polling for the UP Assembly will be held on March 7. Top BJP leaders addressed more than a dozen public meetings Saturday; Akhilesh held eight in seven hours.

It's the third time in as many elections that the party has fielded this “much-liked” leader and loyal SP worker from the seat, despite his loss both times (the second time by just 688 votes).

The conversation veers round to the elections before settling on ‘education’ and ‘development’ — the two issues on which most of the students have an opinion.

VOTING TODAY: The district’s caste mix means all parties are hopeful, but Dalits, the largest group, remain loyal to the BSP

While some in the SP say that Mulayam and Shivpal are going to the constituency on the request of Lucky Yadav, others feel that the seat has become a “prestige battle” for the SP and Akhilesh who want to ensure Singh’s defeat “anyhow”.

The problem of stray cattle has been rising in UP since the Yogi Adityanath government tightened curbs on slaughterhouses after coming to power in 2017.

On Sunday, Modi accused the Opposition of being soft on terror and singled out the SP, linking its election symbol, the bicycle, to those used to plant some of the bombs in the Ahmedabad blasts of 2008.

In his speech, Modi claimed that the BJP had got the blessings of the people in the poll phases already over, and would continue to get the same.

The farmers' killing is a faint memory even at the site of the incident, Tikunia, around 100 km from Jagsar.

SP chief Akhilesh Yadav recently said if voted to power in UP, his government will provide a kilo of ‘ghee’ to the poor along with free ration for five years. He also warned the BJP government would discontinue its free-ration scheme once the polls were over.

Ansari is a history-sheeter in Mohammadabad police station of Ghazipur district with 38 cases filed against him in various police stations in a number of districts, including Lucknow, Ghazipur and Mau. He has been acquitted in most of these cases though.

According to the UP police, 96 members of “Ansari’s gang” have been arrested and 85 of them booked under the Gangsters Act so far.

The annual three-day fair, held at Seer Goverdhanpur town in Varanasi, is organised to mark the birth anniversary of Sant Ravidass, a 15th-16th Century mystic poet saint of the Bhakti Movement.

The scene is strikingly different from that cold, gloomy evening in December, 2019 when she was arrested during an anti-CAA protest in the capital’s Hazratganj area. Her arrest had come while she was doing a Facebook live after violence had broken out at Parivartan Chowk.