Uttar Pradesh

Bhupendra Chaudhary, 54, is a minister for panchayati raj in the Yogi Adityanath government and belongs to the Jat community. He hails from western Uttar Pradesh. His appointment will bring a semblance of power balance in the state. At president, top party leadership represents eastern Uttar Pradesh with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath belonging to Gorakhpur and Prime Minister Narendra Modi representing Varanasi in Lok Sabha.

Maurya on Sunday tweeted: "The organisation is bigger than the government." Though, the tweet did not refer to any particular event, it set off speculations since the Uttar Pradesh Minister had recently met BJP National President J.P. Nadda in New Delhi. The tweet comes at a time when the Uttar Pradesh BJP is waiting for a new state party President. "It appears from the tweet that Maurya has been shortlisted for the post and this is his way of telling his supporters," a party functionary said.

"The EC was dishonest. It did not hear Opposition voices. A large number of votes were cut from the electoral rolls. In Rampur, Samajwadi Party workers were not allowed to cast votes while in Azamgarh, red cards were issued to Samajwadi Party workers. Was the EC sleeping? It did not pay heed to our complaints," he said.

In a statement party national general secretary Arun Singh said, "BJP President J P Nadda has appointed Sunil Bansal, general secretary (organisation) Uttar Pradesh, as national general secretary. He has given responsibility of state in-charge of West Bengal, Telangana and Odisha. Appointment is effective from immediate effect."

The members claimed that Shrikant Tyagi was an offender, but the Noida Police had picked up his wife, Anu, twice without any valid reason or completing legal formalities. A similar community panchayat was held in Muzaffarnagar on Tuesday where the members announced their support to Tyagi and termed the police action as 'harassment of the community'.

Pratapgarh District Magistrate, Nitin Bansal said that Uday Pratap will be freed from house arrest after Moharram is over. "We have managed to salvage the situation after speaking to all sections of people in the locality. Since he was unwilling to cooperate with us, we put him under house arrest to thwart any possible threat to the law and order situation," he added. The 89-year-old erstwhile Raja Uday Pratap Singh had been sitting on dharna since last week to protest the erection of a makeshift gate by the Muslim community in the Pratapgarh area for Moharram.

The state BJP Minority Morcha president Basit Ali said, "We are targeting to hoist the Tricolour on at least 5 lakh Muslim households. We will also reach out to dargahs and madrasas during the campaign. The exercise is being planned as dargahs can spread the message widely. People, essentially Muslims, easily connect with dargahs and madrasas," he added. The party cadre will unfurl the Tricolour on madrasas and dargahs, and get photos clicked for uploading them on social media platforms to ramp up party's nationalist campaign among the minorities.

The girl, Kriti Dubey, of Chhibramau town in Uttar Pradesh's Kannauj district wrote in her letter, "My name is Kriti Dubey. I study in class 1. Modiji, you have caused immense price rise. Even my pencil and rubber (eraser) have got costlier and the price of Maggi has been increased, too. Now my mother beats me for asking for a pencil. What shall I do? Other kids steal my pencil."

Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) president Om Prakash Rajbhar was confident that the BJP would 'accommodate' his son Arvind Rajbhar in the legislative council and pave the way for his 'return' to the BJP fold. The SBSP had recently decided to part ways with the Samajwadi Party with whom it had contested the 2022 state Assembly polls and won six seats, two more than what it had won in alliance with the BJP in 2017.

In a tweet, Anand, who is Mayawati's nephew, said: "The whole world appreciates the governance, administration, discipline of BSP president and former UP chief minister Mayawati. Some opportunists are trying to run their political shops in the name of 'Behenji'. One needs to beware of such selfish people."