Union Home Minister Amit Shah will take a wide-ranging trip across Uttar Pradesh starting in late November, ahead of the state's Assembly polls. A BJP source says he will go to all six party regions to lift workers' spirits.
The first leg will cover two of those regions in November, and the party is planning for Shah to stay overnight in each of the six. He will also sit down with senior figures from each area to map out strategy.
District-level meetings and public rallies should follow.
Uttar Pradesh's chief electoral officer, Navdeep Rinwa, has asked senior officers from 23 enforcement agencies to coordinate closely and keep a tight watch on money, alcohol and narcotics ahead of the 2027 assembly polls.
Each assembly seat will get nine flying squads and nine static surveillance teams. The Election Commission is also flagging constituencies that need extra scrutiny, using seizure data from the 2022 assembly and 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Seizures will be logged on a shared web portal so every agency can act on them quickly.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has claimed that 1.27 crore names were removed from the state's electoral rolls. AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi, speaking at a press conference in Lucknow alongside ASP (Kanshi Ram) chief Chandrashekhar Azad, has asked the Election Commission to publish the list of deleted names and explain how the figure was reached.
Owaisi also pointed to Election Commission data that he said shows 2.89 crore deletions overall, including 46 lakh marked deceased, 25 lakh duplicates, 1.3 crore shifted and 87.19 lakh absent.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has accused Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath of disrespecting Lord Krishna through alleged remarks about cowherds, and says the BJP will lose the 2027 Assembly elections.
Yadav shared a video clip on X of Adityanath speaking at an Uttarakhand event, where the CM allegedly said Yadav would otherwise be grazing buffaloes in his village of Saifai in Etawah.
Yadav claimed Adityanath has grown fearful of defeat, citing the 2024 Lok Sabha and recent MLC elections.
The Election Commission has extended poll-period neutrality rules to retired officials and re-employed state government staff. They are barred from taking part in election campaigns or canvassing.
Voters who were on the roll before the Special Intensive Revision but are now missing can file Form 6 again without fear of action. That protection does not cover anyone already registered in another assembly constituency.
The guidance was shared on X by the Uttar Pradesh chief electoral officer.
The Election Commission has extended its Model Code of Conduct to retired officials engaged by the governments of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, all of which are heading to the polls.
Until now, no specific rules governed these retirees. The same limits that bind serving staff will now apply to them during the code period.
State governments are also barred from calling election officers in districts or constituencies where polls are announced to official meetings or video conferences. The EC has warned of strict action for any violation.
Former CBI head M Nageswara Rao's Sarvajan Sanatan Party has entered Uttar Pradesh politics. It is collecting applications from people who want to contest all 403 seats before early next year's polls.
This first round is only a filter, and those who pass will be asked for fuller details and documents. Applicants must be Indian citizens, registered voters in Uttar Pradesh, and at least 25 by the scrutiny date.
Applying does not guarantee a ticket, as the party's leadership makes the final call.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav wants Aadhaar linked to voting and fingerprint or iris scans introduced before Uttar Pradesh's 2027 Assembly polls. He says this would stop the BJP from manipulating the vote.
He also wants metal voter cards in place of paper and plastic, since they are harder to forge. The INDIA bloc, meanwhile, has demanded that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resign.
Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi also criticised the Centre over delimitation and the electoral roll revision, and alleged faulty EVMs.
Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath is again pushing his "80-20" line, saying the BJP will win a third straight term in the 2027 state Assembly election.
In an interview at Panchayat AajTak Ayodhya, he said the BJP and its allies would take 80 per cent of votes and seats, leaving 20 per cent to the Opposition. He gave no specific seat count.
A News18 UP Mega Survey of 30,925 respondents found 66.6% expect a BJP-NDA government, versus 26.5% for the SP-Congress alliance. A separate Janta Ki Awaz poll projects a close race, with the SP-led alliance slightly ahead at 195-204 seats.
The BJP has shortlisted 209 candidates for Uttar Pradesh's 403 Assembly seats, with polls due early next year. The list is now with party headquarters in Delhi, awaiting final approval.
The names were picked after talks with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and the party is aiming for more than 300 seats.
Yogi also hinted at a new scheme for women. In an interview, he said Akhilesh Yadav had dropped his demand to withdraw the SIR revision and claimed that 1.27 crore Hindu voter names had been deleted from the rolls.
Akhilesh Yadav, national president of the Samajwadi Party, plans to visit the Ayodhya temple with his family on December 12. It would be his first time there since the January 2024 consecration ceremony.
The family will begin at Hanumangarhi, then go on to see the deity Ram Lalla, with party leader Pawan Pandey joining them. The visit lands a few months before the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly vote.
He had earlier linked the trip to finishing a temple he is building in Etawah, which is in its final stages.
Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Aradhana Mishra says voter deletions and Amit Shah's visit to the state are meant to unseat Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
She pointed to a gap between the voter figure the chief minister cited at a working committee meeting, about 16.7 crore, and the roughly 13.4 crore voters left after the SIR process. That, she said, is a drop of about 3.31 crore votes.
Mishra also called the BJP's yatras in the state and across India undemocratic. She said Congress, under Rahul Gandhi, would succeed in restoring democracy.
On Monday the Election Commission of India starts checking how ready Uttar Pradesh is for the 2027 assembly polls, beginning with 18 districts across four divisions.
Manish Garg, a senior deputy election commissioner, will lead the review alongside fellow commission officials, and state election chief Navdeep Rinwa will also take part. Local officials will present on staffing, vehicles, voter lists, voting machines and awareness drives.
The meeting in Meerut begins at 10.30 am, and the team will then cover the rest of the state's divisions and districts.
The Election Commission of India has fixed November 12 for publishing the draft voter list ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, with the final list due January 4.
Officials were told to flag voters who are absent, have moved, appear twice, or have died. The draft will be shared online, at polling stations, and with party representatives.
People will get roughly a month to submit additions, deletions or corrections using Forms 6, 7 and 8. Special drives in schools and colleges will also aim to register first-time voters.
The Election Commission has approved a reshuffle of polling stations across all 403 Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, cutting their total by 3,786. The state will now have 1,73,730 stations, down from 1,77,516, Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa said.
The changes are based on a benchmark of 1,200 voters per station, applied across all 75 districts.
The draft electoral roll for the Special Summary Revision, which uses January 1, 2027 as its qualifying date, will be published at these new stations. Voters whose stations have changed will be informed in writing through booth level officers.
Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Pankaj Chaudhary has hit back at the Opposition over its claims about EVMs, voter lists and the Election Commission. He argued that blame is being put on institutions and party workers, while nobody admits their own shortcomings.
The BJP's 'Loktantra Bachao, Arajakta Hatao' campaign is a response to Opposition claims over the Special Intensive Revision of voter rolls.
Amit Shah led the march in Hyderabad, and Nitin Nabin led one in Kolkata. Marches have also been held in Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Mumbai, Bhopal and Hamirpur.
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