News Analysis India

Tag: Uttar Pradesh

  • Yogi Adityanath has rigged poll for district panchayat chairpersons, says SP chief Akhilesh Yadav

    By PTI

    LUCKNOW: Accusing Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of rigging the elections for district panchayat chairpersons, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Monday said his undemocratic behaviour poses a threat to constitutional institutions.

    “The CM has crossed all limits in rigging the district panchayat chairperson elections. His undemocratic conduct has posed a threat to the constitutional institutions in the state,” said Yadav.

    “Hijacking the mandate, the state administration forcibly prevented candidates of Samajwadi Party and other opposition parties from filing nominations,” the former chief minister said in a statement.

    Yadav also accused the state government of harassing SP leaders and lodging fake criminal cases against them.

    “It is a matter of anguish that officials have remained mute spectators to the obstruction of the election process. The Election Commission too has remained helpless and the Raj Bhavan has observed silence,” he said.

    Yadav said in Balrampur, the SP candidate was kept on house arrest and her nomination papers were snatched.

    In Gorakhpur too, BJP workers laid siege to the main gate of the district collectorate and guarded every point in the building leading to the nomination room, he said.

    “It is shameful to have such immoral conduct in the chief minister’s home district,” said Yadav, adding the SP candidate was stopped from filing nomination in Jhansi too.

    ALSO READ: BJP candidates to win unopposed in 17 districts in zila panchayat chairperson polls; SP alleges foul play by officials

    “In Varanasi, the SP candidate’s nomination paper was rejected,” he said.

    The BJP workers even tried to kidnap the SP candidate in Basti in presence of the police, Yadav alleged, adding in Ghaziabad, his party candidate and proposers were kidnapped before nomination.

    Unfortunately, police and revenue officials in many districts were seen playing an active role in preventing SP and other opposition candidates from filing their nomination papers,” Yadav said.

    “The chief minister and the BJP leadership might pat their back for forcibly converting their defeat in the district panchayat elections into victory by using such undemocratic ways but they will have to face the assembly elections in future,” he said.

    “People are going to answer them (BJP) in their own language.

    The SP will come back in 2022 by winning 350 seats in the assembly and the BJP will be reduced to a few seats and will be forced to sit in the Opposition,” Yadav said.

    Voting for the zila panchayat chairpersons polls will be held, if needed, on July 3.

    The counting of votes will be taken up on the same day, the Uttar Pradesh State Election Commission had said in its poll notification earlier.

    Zila panchayat chairpersons are elected from among the elected members of zila panchayats of various districts.

    There are 75 districts in Uttar Pradesh.

    Four-phase panchayat polls were held in the state last month.

  • Three UP men arrested for trying to convert 15-year-old girl, marry her off

    By PTI
    FIROZABAD: Three residents of Uttar Pradesh’s Firozabad were arrested in Gujarat on Sunday on charges of trying to convert a 15-year-old girl and marry her off, police here said.

    The girl’s father, a resident of Jaunpur district in Uttar Pradesh, runs a canteen in Bharuch in Gujarat, and one of the accused, Saleem, was an employee there, they said.

    Saleem had brought the girl to his hometown Firozabad by telling her father that he knew an occultist who could treat his daughter’s ailment, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ashok Kumar said.

    He said after Saleem did not return, the girl’s father reached Firozabad and lodged a complaint.

    Police collected information and found that Saleem along with his father Abdul and brother-in-law Rahman were in Bharuch, the SSP said.

    The trio was arrested on Sunday and a case registered against them.

    Work is going on to handover the girl to her father, he said.

  • Sex racket busted in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura, five women among 12 held

    By PTI
    MATHURA: Twelve people, including five women, were arrested after police busted a sex racket allegedly being operated from two guest houses in Goverdhan in this district of Uttar Pradesh, officials said on Sunday.

    Two owners of the guest houses are also among those arrested during late Saturday evening raids, Goverdhan Station House Officer (SHO) Pradeep Kumar said.

    The raids were conducted at Sri Krishna Seva Sadan and Pawan Dham guest houses based on inputs received from reliable sources, the SHO said.

    He said five women and as many men were found in objectionable positions during the raids.

    Some objectionable material, including obscene literature, were also seized from the guest houses, Kumar said.

    Two of the arrested women are from Mathura and the remaining three from outside the district, police said, adding that efforts are on to find if more people are involved in the racket.

    It is also being investigated if the women have previous such involvements, they said.

    CCTV footage and fingerprints have also been collected from the spot, police said.

    The 12 were booked under provisions of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act.

    They were arrested and sent for judicial custody, according to police.

  • Another BJP leader criticises COVID handling in Uttar Pradesh

    By PTI
    BALLIA: Criticising the handling of the COVID-19 crisis in Uttar Pradesh, a ruling party leader has claimed that at least 10 people died in every village during the second wave as no lessons were learnt from the first one.

    State BJP working committee member Ram Iqbal Singh, who made the remarks on Saturday, is the latest among the party’s leaders who have questioned the management of the coronavirus infection in the state.

    Speaking to reporters here, Singh rued that the Health Department did not learn any lesson from the first wave of COVID-19 which led to a large number of deaths due to the disease in the second wave.

    “At least 10 people died from every village in the state during the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic,” he alleged.

    The BJP leader also demanded that Rs 10 lakh be given to the kin of those who succumbed to the infection.

    He lamented that after 75 years of freedom, this district with a population of 34 lakh, has “no doctors or medicines”.

    On being reminded that during his visit to Ballia, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had expressed satisfaction with the arrangements made by the Health Department, Singh said the officials had misled the CM, and the truth was not shown.

    He also urged the BJP government to give a diesel subsidy to farmers.

    Earlier in May, BJP’s Sitapur MLA Rakesh Rathore had joined the list of ruling party lawmakers in Uttar Pradesh, expressing resentment over the alleged COVID-19 mismanagement in the state and saying that he feared a sedition charge for speaking up.

    “What standing do MLAs have? If we speak too much, treason and sedition charges will be slapped on us as well,” Rakesh Rathore had told reporters, according to a video clip.

    On May 9, Union Labour minister Santosh Gangwar had complained to the chief minister about the situation in his Bareilly constituency, saying officials don’t take calls and government health centres send back patients for ‘referrals’ from the district hospital.

    In a letter to Adityanath, he had also complained about the “big shortage” of empty oxygen cylinders and the high prices of medical equipment in Bareilly.

    A day later, BJP MLA from Jasrana in Firozabad Ramgopal Lodhi claimed that his coronavirus positive wife was not admitted to an Agra hospital for over three hours, with officials saying that beds were not available.

    In April, a ‘confidential’ letter written by UP Law Minister Brajesh Pathak surfaced on social media.

    Pathak had lashed out at his state’s health authorities, complaining that beds for coronavirus patients were falling short and ambulances took hours to arrive in the state capital.

  • 12-year-old mentally-challenged girl gang-raped in Uttar Pradesh

    By PTI
    BANDA: A minor mentally-challenged girl was allegedly abducted and gang-raped here, police said on Sunday.

    The 12-year-old victim had gone to a marriage function Thursday night, from where she went missing.

    She was found in an unconscious condition here Friday night, SHO, Kotwali Police Station, Bhaskar Mishra said.

    Citing a complaint lodged in this regard, he said two unidentified men abducted the girl, and then raped her.

    The officer said rape was confirmed in the medical report of the girl.

    Mishra added that a case of abduction and gang-rape has been registered against the unidentified culprits and efforts are on to arrest them.

  • BJP candidates to win unopposed in 17 districts in zila panchayat chairperson polls; SP alleges foul play by officials

    By Express News Service
    LUCKNOW: With no other candidates filing nominations on Saturday — the last day to submit papers — the ruling BJP candidates are set to get elected unopposed to the Zila Panchayat chairperson posts in at least 17 out of the 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh.

    With no other candidates filing nominations and in some districts, the nomination papers of the opposition candidates were rejected by the district election authorities, the BJP candidates are set to be elected unopposed in at least 17 districts.

    The BJP candidates are assured of triumph unopposed in CM Yogi Adityanath’s native district Gorakhpur, Ghaziabad, Lalitpur, Moradabad, Bulandshahar, Saharanpur, Amroha, Gonda, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Chitrakoot, Jhansi, Meerut, Mau, Agra, Sharwasti, Balrampur and Banda. 

    Ex-chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, however, alleged that the local authorities at the behest of the BJP government stopped SP candidates from filing nominations in many districts, including CM’s native district Gorakhpur. “Let the BJP get their candidates elected unopposed through use of official machinery, but the people of the state will ensure that the BJP isn’t able to win in 2022 assembly polls, even those many seats that it claims to have won in the district panchayat chairperson polls,” Yadav tweeted.

    Meanwhile, in a significant development, the Mayawati-led BSP candidates remained away from the nomination process, despite being in decisive numbers in some districts, consequently helping the BJP candidates to win unopposed.

    In Mau district, where BSP had maximum seven elected district panchayat members where as the BJP merely had two district panchayat members, the BJP candidate Manoj Rai is set to be elected unopposed as district panchayat chairperson, as the BSP didn’t field any of its district panchayat members as candidate for the July 3 chairperson polls.

    In Ghaziabad district also, the BSP didn’t field it’s candidate, despite having significant numbers of district panchayat members.

    In Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency Varanasi district, where only BJP and SP candidates are in fray, the BJP and SP candidates have demanded rejection of rival candidate nomination papers, citing technical flaws in the papers.

  • Uttar Pradesh BJP drops rape convict MLA Kuldeep Sengar’s kin as candidate for panchayat chief polls

    By Express News Service
    LUCKNOW: Ten months after he was convicted for raping a teenager and sentenced to life in prison and subsequently losing his state assembly membership, Kuldeep Sengar’s shadow is still haunting the ruling BJP in Uttar Pradesh.

    With the 2017 Unnao rape survivor voicing concern over the BJP reposing its faith in the former MLA’s kin for winning panchayat polls in Unnao district, the party has been compelled to roll back its decision twice in three months.

    In April, the BJP named Sengar’s wife Sangita as its supported candidate from one of the wards in district panchayat elections in Unnao. As the decision caused uproar and drew protests from the rape survivor, the party had to replace her.

    But two months later, it was again caught on the wrong foot on Thursday when it named the former MLA’s close aide and distant relative Arun Singh as BJP candidate for next month’s district panchayat chairperson polls in Unnao.

    A few hours later, the rape survivor appealed against the decision to President Ram Nath Kovind, PM Narendra Modi and CM Yogi Adityanath.

    She pointed out that Singh was one of the accused in the case registered in connection with the accident involving her car in July 2019, which killed her two aunts and inflicted serious injuries to her and her advocate.

    Realising that the decision had rendered opportunity to its political opponents to target the party eight months before the assembly polls, the BJP changed its candidate despite Singh’s protests that he was given clean chit by the CBI.  

  • President Ram Nath Kovind embarks on train journey to visit birthplace in UP

    By PTI
    President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday embarked on a train journey to visit his birthplace in Uttar Pradesh, where he will interact with his old acquaintances from school days and the early days of his social service.

    It would be after a gap of 15 years that an incumbent president is travelling by train. “President Kovind boards a special presidential train from Safdarjung railway station to Kanpur. The train will make two stop-overs, at Jhinjhak and Rura of Kanpur Dehat, and will reach Kanpur Central in the evening,” the Rashtrapati Bhavan tweeted.

    Railway Minister Piyush Goyal can also be seen in pictures tweeted by the Rashtrapati Bhavan of the president boarding the train. This is the first time that Kovind will visit his birthplace after becoming the president. Though he had desired to visit the place earlier, it could not materialise because of the coronavirus pandemic.

    “As he boards the train, the president will be travelling down the memory lane that will cover a span of seven decades of his life, right from his childhood to holding the top constitutional position in the country,” a statement issued on Wednesday by the Rashtrapati Bhavan had said.

    The two stop-overs at Jhinjhak and Rura are close to the president’s birthplace, Paraunkh village in Kanpur Dehat.

    The last time a president travelled by train was in 2006 when A P J Abdul Kalam boarded a special train from Delhi to Dehradun to attend the passing-out parade of the Indian Military Academy (IMA) cadets.

    Records show that the country’s first president, Rajendra Prasad, often undertook train journeys, the Rashtrapati Bhavan had said. Soon after taking office as the president, he visited his birthplace, Ziradei in Bihar’s Siwan district.

    Prasad boarded the president’s special train from Chhapra to reach Ziradei, where he spent three days, the statement said. He travelled across the country by train. Prasad’s successors also preferred train journeys to connect with the people of the country.

    On June 28, Kovind will board the train at the Kanpur Central Railway Station to reach Lucknow for his visit to the capital city of Uttar Pradesh. On June 29, he will return to New Delhi on a special flight.

  • UP: FIR against news portal, its two journalists over a documentary on mosque demolition

    By PTI
    BARABANKI (UP): The Uttar Pradesh Police has filed an FIR against news portal ‘The Wire’, its two journalists and two others over a documentary on the demolition of a mosque here which, the administration said, was built illegally.

    The case has been registered against journalists Siraj Ali and Mukul S Chauhan, and two others — Mohammad Anees and Mohammad Naeem — who gave “provocative” statements in the documentary that spread “prejudiced, misleading and untrue” information, police said on Friday.

    The Barabanki administration had demolished the mosque on May 17, terming it an illegally constructed building and attributed its claim to an April 2 order of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court.

    The mosque was located adjacent to the tehsil premises and opposite the SDM’s residence.

    A video related to the Ramsanehi Ghat tehsil complex was shared by news portal ‘The Wire’ on its Twitter handle on June 23 in which “baseless” claims have been made, Superintendent of Police Yamuna Prasad said.

    “A case has been registered against The Wire on Thursday night on charges of spreading enmity and religious frenzy by broadcasting sensational, prejudiced, misleading and untrue things and making a malicious attempt to spoil communal amity. Instructions have been issued to initiate action,” he said.

    In-charge of Kotwali police station Sachchidanand Rai said investigations are underway to find out who else was involved in “making provocative statements and spreading false information”.

    The news portal has termed the police’s charges “baseless”, and accused the Uttar Pradesh government of “criminalising the work of journalists who are reporting what is happening in the state”.

    “This is the fourth FIR filed by the UP Police in the past 14 months against The Wire and/or its journalists and each of these cases is baseless.

    The Adityanath government does not believe in media freedom and is criminalising the work of journalists who are reporting what is happening in the state,” said The Wire’s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan in a statement on Thursday.

  • UP man shoots girlfriend dead, kills himself later

    By PTI
    SAMBHAL: A 25-year-old man allegedly shot his girlfriend and shot himself later in the Chandausi Kotwali area of the district in the early hours of Friday, police said.

    According to SP Chakresh Mishra, Shivam reached the house of 23-year-old Mamata and shot her dead. He then shot himself.

    The countrymade weapon used in the incident has been recovered, police said, adding that the bodies have been sent for post-mortem examination.

    Meanwhile, the family of the deceased man claimed that he was murdered.

    The matter is being probed, police added.

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