UP Election: SP leader's remark against saffron robe insult to seers, Adityanath's jibe at Dimple Yadav

In an apparent jibe at Samajwadi Party leader Dimple Yadav, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday said her remark linking the colour of rust with saffron robe is an insult to sanatan dharma and seers. Yadav at a rally in Sirathu had said the BJP’s double-engine government has rusted and Adityanath wears clothes that resemble the colour of the rust. Sharing a video clip of his speech during a rally, Adityanath said he is a "bhagvadhari", which is his identity.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a swipe at the opposition claiming that for them parties were "private properties" while the BJP is a party of its workers. Addressing booth-level workers of the BJP in his Lok Sabha constituency Varanasi, Modi exhorted party workers to ensure that the poor get the benefits of the government's welfare schemes. He alleged that terrorists use to operate without any fear during the Samajwadi Party's rule in Uttar Pradesh. Modi also claimed the rival parties sees the Kashi Vishwanath Dham project through a communal lens.

Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday claimed that the people of Uttar Pradesh have decided to send 'Babaji' back to his 'math', apparently referring to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Adityanath, who was a five-time MP from Gorakhpur, is the mahant of the Gorakhnath Math. Addressing a rally in the Chillupar constituency of Gorakhpur in favour of SP candidate Vinay Shankar Tiwari, Yadav said, "Today voting in being held for the fifth phase and everyone has decided to send 'Babaji' back to his 'math'." At another rally in Deoria, the SP chief said, "Babaji did not give you laptop as he does not know how to operate it. He even does not know how to run a smart phone.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said the Uttar Pradesh elections are a fight between the dynasts and diehard nationalists, which the opposition parties do not understand. Addressing his second election rally of the day in Deoria, Modi attacked previous governments in Uttar Pradesh, saying they shut sugar mills and didn’t clear dues of sugarcane farmers.

Asserting that in difficult times India has given priority to the lives of its natives, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said the government is working tirelessly to bring back all citizens stuck in Ukraine. Addressing an election rally in Basti in Uttar Pradesh, Modi pointed to the turmoil prevailing in the world and pitched for strengthening the country by making it "atmanirbhar" (self-reliant). Read more

Accusing the Samajwadi Party of doing appeasement politics, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday said its government earlier did not provide electricity to people on Ram Navami and Sri Krishna Janmotsav, but power used to be supplied during Muharram. Addressing an election meeting here, Shah if people vote for the SP again, electricity will not come to Uttar Pradesh.

In the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday said India favours world peace. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi's role is being appreciated on the matter. India is peace-lover. India has never attacked any country and never grabbed land of other country. "We want world peace and everyone should accept it," Rajnath said addressing an election rally here in Bairia. 

As the fifth round of assembly polls was held in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday, it was a day of double excitement for 18-year-old Gem Mishra, who lives with his family in a quaint neighbourhood of Pratapgarh district. As excited as he was for being a first-time voter, Gem was equally exhilarated about becoming part of 'Green Voting' -- a plantation drive conducted on the polling day by a local environment protection group. 
"Loktantra mazboot karna hai aur srishti bhi (We have to strengthen the democracy and the nature, too),” Gem, a second-year B.
Sc student at Babu Sant Baksh College in Lilapur here, told PTI. After casting his vote in the morning in the Raniganj assembly constituency, the first-time voter said he was “very excited” as he rushed home to plant a guava sapling.

Amit and Vipin might have raised some eyebrows when they cast their vote at a booth in Mohammadpur Umri village here on Sunday.
They have an uncanny resemblance to each other. Amit and Vipin are twins and Prayagraj’s Mohammadpur Umri is called a "village of twins". 
A day before the polling, PTI met came across at least 10 twins, and local people say there are about 30 such pairs in the village, where around 1,000 people live. Villagers say, over the years, several experts have visited the village, taking blood and saliva samples, to understand the phenomenon. Outsiders sometimes call the place a "haunted village". Amit says he was pulled up by security personnel in the last elections when he went to a polling booth to vote. The security personnel took him for his brother Vipin, saying he has already voted, says Amit. Amit says luckily his brother and mother were around, who explained to the BSF personnel that they are twins. Another resident admits having voted twice on numerous occasions even though he was challenged once by the media. He says they manage to erase "indelible ink". 

Asserting that in difficult times India has given priority to the lives of its natives, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said the government is working tirelessly to bring back all citizens stuck in Ukraine. Addressing an election rally in Basti in Uttar Pradesh, Modi pointed to the turmoil prevailing in the world and pitched for strengthening the country by making it "atmanirbhar" (self-reliant).

"Detailed discussion on polls in 5 states and the way forward was done. There are challenges by present Government, Constitution and democracy under threat. Congress is the only Opposition party today, people have expectations. It is our duty to see what we can contribute to the party": Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot. 

I had a meeting with KC Venugopal, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Ashok Gehlot today. Detailed discussion on Assembly Elections in the five states was taken up. Strategy regarding results that will be announced on March 10 was also discussed: Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Sunday met Rahul Gandhi and took stock of the party's performance in the ongoing assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. General secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and and general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal were also present in the meeting. After the meeting Baghel said, "There was a detailed discussion on the party's performance in elections in five states and on strategy regarding results." Baghel is monitoring the UP elections and has been campaigning, giving ample time to the state. Sources said, Rahul Gandhi took feedback about party's performance in UP elections and discussed state organisational polls and also on the issue of Rajya Sabha elections. Baghel has been talking of cow shelter and 'Godhan Nyay Yojna' in UP and wants to push more such schemes in the state. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said, "There are challenges before the nation as the Constitution and democracy are under threat, but the Congress is the only opposition party which is fighting and people have lot of expectations from it." Both the leaders had in-depth discussion on the assembly elections in five states and the strategy to be adopted by the party after the announcement of results on March 10. They also discussed the Chhattisgarh organisational elections and considered names for vacant seats in the Rajya Sabha. The meeting discussed that the Congress-ruled states would be implementing the people-friendly policies in which Chhattisgarh's flagship scheme 'Godhan Nyay Yojana' would be implemented on priority. The dates for the organisational elections in the Congress party have also been fixed in the meeting. It was decided that the process of elections would start from April 1 this year. The election of block committees would be held in May. At the same time, by September 20, Congress will also choose its new state presidents.

Manipur Election 2022: JDU candidate from Kshetrigao, Rojit Wahengbam was shot by unidentified persons. He was admitted to ICU and is stable now. We don't know who tried to kill him but they should be caught. He was targeted out of political rivalry, says Wahengbam Surbala Devi, his mother. 

For decades these 'Parivarwadis' let our armies dependent on other countries, destroyed India's Defence (sector). But today, we have a Defence corridor being set up in Uttar Pradesh: PM Modi in Basti, UP.

'Itar Wale Mitra' accumulated the money in their lockers, focused on 'Sabka Saath Par Sir Saifai Ka Vikas'. Had it been Samajwadi Party government, COVID vaccines would have been sold in markets, no poor would have received it. BJP ensured no one was deprived of it: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Gorakhpur

"I asked an Samajwadi Party leader to list development works done under his party. He replied infrastructure, medical facilities, roads were not their priority. He told me further, "Our agenda was to get the 'Kabristan (cemetry) boundary' made.": Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Gorakhpur.

"Aaditya Thackeray had been to Uttar Pradesh. I think there is going to be a change in UP. People have made up their minds. In the atmosphere we saw, there is a neck to neck fight. The support for Akhilesh Yadav shows the change": Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut.

Senior Congress leader Pramod Tiwari on Sunday alleged that "mafia and criminals entered politics in Uttar Pradesh after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) formed an alliance to form the government in the state in 1996".Speaking to the media, Congress leader charged, "In 1996 when the BJP-BSP formed government, 21 ministers were mafias with criminal backgrounds. The BJP is responsible for Mafiawad in UP. The BJP should be blamed for the criminalisation of politics in the state."Tiwari said that the Union Minister for Defence Rajnath Singh had replied that everything is fair in politics when he was the Chief Minister after he had levelled the allegations of the BJP fielding criminals in politics in the state Assembly.

Targetting the BJP and the Samajwadi Party stating that their tenure can be characterized by 'jungle raj' and 'gunda raj', Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) National Spokesperson Sudhindra Bhadoria on Sunday said that SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav will go to Saifai and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will go to Gorakhpur, while asserting that BSP Chief Mayawati will become the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh for the fifth time.Speaking to ANI, Bhadoria said, "As far as the question of BJP or Samajwadi Party is concerned in Uttar Pradesh, both the parties inflict communal violence. During their regimes, Goondaraj and Jungle raj prevailed in the state. I would also like to say that when the results of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly will come on March 10, Yogi Adityanath will go to Gorakhpur and Akhilesh Yadav will go to Saifai his home town and Mayawati will become the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh."

The convoy of Samajwadi Party candidate Gulshan Yadav was attacked by some miscreants near Paharpur in Pratapgarh on Monday. Yadav escaped unhurt but his car was damaged in the attack. He later blamed Raghuraj Pratap Singh a.k.a. Raja Bhaiyya for the attack. Raja Bhaiyya however denied having anything to do with the alleged attack. "Why would I do something like this and spoil the elections? This has been done to get sympathy," he said. Gulshan Yadav has been mounting a vociferous attack on Raja Bhaiyya who has been winning the Kunda assembly seat since 1993.

Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan has asked Uttar Pardesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to go on a pilgrimage. Accusing the Yogi Adityanath government and the Modi government of blaming others to hide their own weakness, Jaya Bachchan said that, "They only talk about women's security, but not a single BJP MP raised the issue in Parliament. The UP chief minister cannot understand the pain of women. It is better that he goes on a pilgrimage." Bachchan was addressing a series of election meetings on Saturday evening in Uttar Pradesh. "The British came and ruled the country and went away after looting the country. But now other nephews of the British have come, they are also looting the country," she said. Addressing the meetings, Dimple Yadav also fired a salvo on the Yogi government on the issue of women security. "The NCRB report suggests that the crime against women has increased in the BJP regime," she said, giving reference to Hathras and Unnao incidents. She also raised the issues of price rise, unemployment, plight of farmers, and scarcity of oxygen during the corona period. She promised that the SP, if comes to power, will give top priority to women security, Kanya Vidyadhan to inter-pass girls, 33 per cent reservation in jobs, annual pension of Rs 18,000 each to one crore women, laptops to students, free education to girls up to PG level, 300-unit free electricity.

After doing sit-ups on stage to seek forgiveness from voters for his 'lapses', BJP MLA,Bhupesh Chaubey is back in the news. This new video clip of his giving an oil massage to an elderly man has gone viral on social media. In this video, which was taken in some remote village, he is purportedly seen giving a massage with oil on the body of an elderly man. The man in the video could be seen showing his aching body parts to the MLA. Not only this, but a picture is also circulating on social media in which he is purportedly seen doing 'dandvat' (bowing down) before a woman. Last week, Chaubey made news at an election rally at Robertsganj when he stood up, held his ears and did sit-ups, begging forgiveness for any mistakes that he might have made during the last five-years. He did this in presence of the former health minister of Jharkhand and MLA Bhanu Pratap Shahi, who was there for electioneering in his favour. Chaubey had defeated Avinash Kushwaha of Samajwadi Party (SP) in the 2017 Assembly election by a margin of over 40,000 votes. The BJP fielded him again in this Brahmin dominated constituency. This time the SP has fielded Kushwaha, while the BSP has fielded a Brahmin candidate Avinash Shukla.

Bad home economics principles may have turned out to be the cornerstone of political economics in Goa. Despite the burdened state treasury groaning under a debt of nearly Rs 20,000 crore, political parties announced a slew of populist schemes offering doles, low interest loans without collateral and allowances for women and youth, in order to gain maximum traction among the electorate in the state assembly polls which were held on February 14. According to the state finance ministry officials the state's current debt is pegged at around Rs 20,054 crore, with a bulk accounted for by market loans of Rs 16,364 crore taken by the state government. The other major debt component are loans sourced by the government from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) to the tune of Rs 593.48 crore. The central government's share of loans to Goa includes Rs 1,894 crore in the form of special securities issued to the National Small Savings Fund and loans and advances from the central government which are valued at Rs 1,172 crore. Goa's total debt is a shade less than the total net budgetary expenditure of Rs 21,646 crore earmarked for the financial year 2021-22 and nearly 22 percent of the estimated gross domestic product of the state which has been pegged at Rs 89,421 crore.

BJP leader and Union Minister Anurag Thakur on Saturday took a dig at Akhilesh Yadav and questioned how the Samajwadi Party would be able to provide food for people when they used to steal taps during their tenure. Speaking with news agency ANI in Gorakhpur, Thakur said, "Akhilesh Yadav is talking about providing free electricity but during SP's tenure there used to be no electricity. Instead, people would hang clothes on electricity wires. They (Akhilesh) used to steal 'toti' (taps); how can they provide 'roti' (food)?" "We often used to hear about gang wars and Japanese fever (encephalitis) in Gorakhpur but Modiji and Yogiji freed the district from them," he said while lauding the double-engine BJP government in Uttar Pradesh.

Eastern Uttar Pradesh is all set to tinge its political chrome as the countdown has begun for the fifth phase of state Assembly polls scheduled on Sunday. A total of 61 Assembly constituencies spread across 12 districts including Ayodhya, Sultanpur, Chitrakoot, Pratapgarh, Kaushambi, Prayagraj, Barabaki, Bahraich, Shrawasti, Gonda, Amethi and Raebareli are going to polls on Sunday. The polling will begin at 7 am and continue till 6 pm.As many as 692 candidates are in the fray in the fifth phase whose political fate will be decided by around 2.24 crore electorates.The state is witnessing a multi-cornered contest with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Samajwadi Party (SP), Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) as prime contenders.In 2017, BJP had won 38 seats out of 55 seats in this region, while the SP had retained 15 and the Congress had won two seats.When it comes to key issues, job losses among migrant labourers, lack of infrastructure, unemployment and most-importantly stray cattle menace hound the ruling BJP that might lead to a jerky ride for the party in this phase. Further, some sort of anti-incumbency factor exists that might reflect on the ballot box.However, BJP is banking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's charismatic image, double-engine rhetoric, free ration during the COVID pandemic and PM Awas Yojana.On the other hand, Akhilesh Yadav-led SP is eying on youth electorates besides its traditional game of consolidation of Yadav and Muslim vote bank. Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM which is also in the fray may prove to be a spoiler in SP's social engineering when it comes to Muslim voters. BSP supremo Mayawati who appeared to be on relatively backfoot in terms of aggressive campaigning is relying on its core Dalit vote bank.With Priyanka Gandhi Vadra steering Congress' power-packed campaigns, the party is also relying on this region for a good share of seats. The party believes Priyanka Gandhi's "Ladki hoon lad sakti hoon" campaign will mobilize women voters that might bring some good fortune.Eastern Uttar Pradesh is all set to tinge its political chrome as the countdown has begun for the fifth phase of state Assembly polls scheduled on Sunday.A total of 61 Assembly constituencies spread across 12 districts including Ayodhya, Sultanpur, Chitrakoot, Pratapgarh, Kaushambi, Prayagraj, Barabaki, Bahraich, Shrawasti, Gonda, Amethi and Raebareli are going to polls on Sunday. The polling will begin at 7 am and continue till 6 pm.As many as 692 candidates are in the fray in the fifth phase whose political fate will be decided by around 2.24 crore electorates.The state is witnessing a multi-cornered contest with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Samajwadi Party (SP), Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) as prime contenders.In 2017, BJP had won 38 seats out of 55 seats in this region, while the SP had retained 15 and the Congress had won two seats.When it comes to key issues, job losses among migrant labourers, lack of infrastructure, unemployment and most-importantly stray cattle menace hound the ruling BJP that might lead to a jerky ride for the party in this phase. Further, some sort of anti-incumbency factor exists that might reflect on the ballot box.However, BJP is banking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's charismatic image, double-engine rhetoric, free ration during the COVID pandemic and PM Awas Yojana.On the other hand, Akhilesh Yadav-led SP is eying on youth electorates besides its traditional game of consolidation of Yadav and Muslim vote bank. Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM which is also in the fray may prove to be a spoiler in SP's social engineering when it comes to Muslim voters. BSP supremo Mayawati who appeared to be on relatively backfoot in terms of aggressive campaigning is relying on its core Dalit vote bank.With Priyanka Gandhi Vadra steering Congress' power-packed campaigns, the party is also relying on this region for a good share of seats. The party believes Priyanka Gandhi's "Ladki hoon lad sakti hoon" campaign will mobilize women voters that might bring some good fortune.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah will address rallies in Uttar Pradesh's Maharajganj and Ballia today.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday launched a scathing attack on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh stating that it wants to extract money from the poor and fill the pockets of rich people.Akhilesh Yadav also exuded confidence over SP's victory in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections."They (BJP) want to take money from poor and give it to their rich businessmen friends. People will bring SP to power. Petrol and diesel prices are increasing continuously," Yadav said while addressing a public rally as a part of his elections campaign in UP's Balrampur.He further took a jibe at Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and said, "Baba CM has booked his ticket from Lucknow to Gorakhpur on March 11."

The Election Commission on Saturday issued a notice to a BJP candidate from Uttar Pradesh for allegedly making communal remarks, and asked him to respond within a day. While issuing the notice to Raghvendra Pratap Singh contesting the Uttar Pradesh polls from Domariyaganj assembly seat, the poll watchdog referred to a video clip in which he broadly said in Bhojpuri that Hindus who "go to the other side" (and vote for the rival candidate) have Muslim blood flowing through their veins. The EC also provided the transcript of the purported remarks. The Commission noted that an FIR has already been lodged against Singh under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and election laws.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address rallies in Basti, Deoria and Varanasi today.