Assembly Elections 2022 Highlights: 70 BJP leaders to take part in Vijay Sankalp Yatra in Uttarakhand

Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami on Monday promised free tablets for students of classes 10 and 12 studying in government schools in the state. Apart from this, free tablets will also be provided to students from government colleges. For this, money will be transferred to students' accounts through DBT. 

About 70 BJP heavyweights including union ministers, chief ministers and senior leaders will participate in the party's 'Vijay Sankalp Yatra' in Uttarakhand. 
The prominent names are Union Home minister Amit Shah, Chief Ministers Manohar Lal Khattar and Jairam Thakur. As per the plan, one senior BJP leader will be part of the yatra in one assembly constituency before it ends on January 5 next year. BJP chief J.P. Nadda and Union Minister Anurag Thakur have already participated in the Yatra.

BJP polluting country's politics, people fed up with it: Akhilesh

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday accused the ruling BJP of “polluting” the country’s politics and said the outcome of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls will also decide the fate of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre. The opposition leader claimed that there is a wave against the BJP, which runs the government in the state and the Centre.

PM Modi gave free vaccines to all. Some people said it's Modi, BJP vaccine but that vaccine is only saving people from Covid: UP CM Yogi Adityanath   

PM Modi gave free vaccines to all. Some people said it's Modi, BJP vaccine but that vaccine is only saving people from Covid. Now the public will oppose those who opposed the vaccines: CM Yogi Adityanath in Mirzapur

Uttar Pradesh roads will soon vie with those in America if the Adityanath government is given another five-year term in the state, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Monday. The Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways made the assertion while laying foundation stones for three national highway projects worth Rs 1,123 crore here along with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

“If UP continues to grow under the double-engine governments (of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Centre and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in UP) for another five years, the UP roads will not only surpass European standards but will vie with those in America,” asserted Gadkari. “Mark my words. They are lines carved in stones,” he said, seeking to assure the audience attending the rally on the occasion.

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Monday tweeted a cartoon to hit back at the ruling BJP after the Income Tax raided the premises of some of his close associates. Akhilesh wrote on his Twitter handle, "Tulsidas ji has said, "Hit unhit pashu, pakshi, hu jana (animals and birds too know what is good and what is bad for them)". He also posted a cartoon of a government car carrying Income Tax officials which has a sticker saying, "On election duty" and "raids at premises of close aides of Akhilesh" written in Hindi. The reference is to the income tax raids that were carried out on his four associates in Uttar Pradesh.

The full bench of the Election Commission comprising the CEC and two Commissioners will reach Goa on Monday evening to take stock of poll preparedness in the state, sources said. Elections in Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Manipur are likely to be announced in the first half of January next year. The poll panel had recently visited Punjab to take stock of poll preparedness. The Commission, comprising Chief Election Commission Sushil Chandra and Commissioners Rajiv Kumar and Anoop Chandra Pandey, will interact with state poll machinery and state administration in Goa during their two-day visit, the sources said.

The 'Jan Vishvas Yatra' of the BJP, which was flagged off simultaneously from six different places, will end on January 1-2 after covering all the 403 assembly constituencies of the state, the party said on Monday.

In yet another jolt the Congress ahead of the Goa Assembly polls, the party's state working president, Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco, resigned as Member of the Legislative Assembly on Monday, reducing the party's  strength to two in the 40-member House. Two other Congress leaders had also recently resigned as MLAs in the state, where elections are due early next year.

Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath meets people in Gorakhpur.

A team of the Election Commission of India led by Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra will be on a two-day visit to Uttarakhand from December 23 to take stock of the poll preparedness ahead of the State Assembly elections in 2022

CM Yogi Adityanath in Jaunpur said that during previous government when a job vacancy used to be announced, the whole family used to go out to extort money, but today we have given 5 lakh jobs and no one can raise finger on a single appointment because of our transparent, honest government. Earlier govt's had narrow thinking and only thought for their families but for PM Modi 135 crore population is a family and hence big development and infrastructure projects are being implemented.

Ram Iqbal Singh, a former BJP MLA and member of the party's state executive, joined the Samajwadi Party (SP) on Monday. Singh, known as a firebrand leader, had been vocal in his criticism of the party's policies on key issues, including the October 3 Lakhimpur Kheri violence. He had also criticised the IT raids on SP leaders. "I had been talking on issues, but no one was willing to listen or respond. What is the point of staying in a party where you are not even taken note of and no one gives you an ear," he told reporters. Singh is a well-known Thakur leader from Ballia and wields considerable influence in the area.

Senior Congress leader and Punjab Minister Rana Gurjeet Singh has lashed out at Congress' state unit chief Navjot Singh Sidhu for trying to create divisions within the party. “You are like a mercenary having joined the party just with the sole purpose of becoming the CM, while I have been in the party right from my birth," he said while responding to Sidhu’s remarks that it was the end of the road for him (Rana). “Unlike Sidhu, I am a born Congress man and have not joined the party for the sole purpose of becoming CM,” Rana said.

Captain (Amarinder Singh) said that doors have been closed for Sidhu, but see today...he is sitting at home and is licking the feet of Modi: Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu at a rally in Kapurthala, Punjab

The Samajwadi Party (SP) will field a maximum number of Brahmin candidates in the upcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. Senior Samajwadi leader and former Speaker, Mata Prasad Pandey, said that SP president Akhilesh Yadav would field maximum Brahmin candidates, particularly in eastern UP, to ensure return to power. Pandey was speaking at a Brahmin summit organised by the party in Katheri constituency in Ambedkar Nagar on Sunday.

The Lucknow wing of the Aligarh Muslim University Old Boys' Association (AMUOBA) has released its list of nine demands from the political parties vying for the minority votes for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. The AMUOBA said that this was the right time for Muslims and other backward communities to strike a bargain with political parties.

Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari will inaugurate and lay the foundation stone of projects worth Rs 1,500 crore in Jaunpur today. They will also address a rally at the Fauzdaar Inter College here. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Prayagraj on Tuesday and participate in a one of its kind programme to be attended by over two lakh women, his office said. The programme is being held as per Modi's vision to empower women, especially at the grassroots level, by providing them with necessary skills, incentives and resources, the PMO said, adding that he will transfer an amount of Rs 1000 crore in the bank account of Self Help Groups (SHGs), benefitting around 16 lakh women members. This transfer is being done under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana - National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM), with 80,000 SHGs receiving Community Investment Fund (CIF) of Rs 1.10 lakh per SHG and 60,000 SHGs receiving a revolving fund of Rs 15,000 per SHG, it said. 

A team of the Election Commission of India led by Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra will be on a three-day visit to Goa from December 20 to take stock of the poll preparedness ahead of the State Assembly elections in 2022

BJP MP Hema Malini on Sunday expressed hope that after Ayodhya and Kashi, her constituency Mathura will also get a grand temple and cited the Kashi Vishwanath corridor. READ MORE

Though Trinamool Congress made some bold claims to make this election free from rigging and violence, but at the end of the day the information trickling down shows that the party's hierarchy hardly had any control on the lower rung of the party order.

In a no-holds-barred attack, Punjab minister Rana Gurjeet Singh on Sunday called state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu a "political mercenary" and alleged that he has divided the party.

The minister also accused Sidhu of questioning the loyalty of the "true and traditional Congressmen" and said he joined the party just to become the chief minister.

Sinking their political differences, members of the CPI(M), BJP and the Congress held a sit-in outside a police station in Kolkata to protest against alleged rigging by the Trinamool Congress in two booths in the area during the civic poll in the city on Sunday.

Campaigning for the December 24 municipal corporation election in Chandigarh, AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal promised free water and doorstep delivery of services if his party wins the polls. He accused the ruling BJP and the Congress of having "ruined" Chandigarh which is also known as 'the City Beautiful'.