Afternoon Pulse: SP takes its duplicate-voter list to the poll office as Yogi brings a pay rise to Bareilly

Since this morning, the voter-roll fight has moved from speeches to paperwork. Akhilesh Yadav's single Azamgarh example has turned into a party file covering about 100 constituencies, now sitting at the Chief Electoral Officer's office in Lucknow. As of 1 pm, neither poll officials nor the BJP had replied to it in anything we could find.

Amar Ujala and Aaj Tak report that an SP delegation of K.K. Srivastava, Harishchandra Singh Yadav and Radheshyam Singh handed over a memorandum on behalf of state president Shyam Lal Pal. The party alleges thousands of duplicate entries in which the same person appears under different voter ID numbers. Its examples include one woman listed three times at a booth in Chhibramau (Kannauj), a young woman entered three times in Etawah, and a voter listed four times in Shravasti. According to Amar Ujala, the memorandum also names Saharanpur, Mathura, Agra, Bareilly, Lucknow, Kanpur Nagar, Ballia and Jaunpur, and asks for checks at every booth in all 403 seats before 2027. These are the SP's claims and have not been checked independently. The Azamgarh entries under the name Vikas Yadav, which we flagged this morning, have also drawn no official response so far.

The Supreme Court route has not moved. The INDIA bloc petition against the Election Commission, which Akhilesh signed, still has to clear the registry's 14 objections before it can be listed. ANI and Business Today list the problems: missing vakalatnamas for petitioners 3 to 11, a blurred copy of Mallikarjun Kharge's ID card, unclear annexures, a Rs 220 court-fee shortfall, and a question about why the Chief Election Commissioner and the two Election Commissioners are named as private parties. Neither outlet reports a refiling or a hearing date. The BJP has seized on the errors. Bihar BJP chief Sanjay Saraogi told ANI the bloc's "legal script" had "fallen flat on its face on the very first day."

Yogi Adityanath is in Bareilly. Amar Ujala reported that he landed at the Police Lines ground around 11:20 am, where a film on village watchmen was screened and some were honoured. The government order raising the gram prahari honorarium from Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,500 a month was issued on Monday, Amar Ujala reported. Outlets still give different statewide totals, from about 60,000 to 70,000 watchmen. His 2 pm rally at Bareilly Club backs BJP candidate Hari Singh Dhillon for the Bareilly-Moradabad teachers' seat in the Legislative Council, Aaj Tak and Amar Ujala reported. When we published, no outlet had yet reported what he said, so the reply to the SP that we flagged this morning is still to come.

Congress has moved on its own mess. State in-charge Rajendra Pal Gautam has set up a five-member panel led by former state president Brijlal Khabri to examine Sunday's clash at the Lucknow headquarters between supporters of state chief Ajay Rai and councillor Mamta Chaudhary, Aaj Tak, UPTak and Sandesh Wahak reported. The other members are Abhishek Dutt, Abdul Hannan, Ravi Verma and Shamina Shafiq. The panel starts work today and must report to the high command within seven days. Aaj Tak said Rai, now back in Varanasi, declined to comment.

In the courts, the Allahabad High Court has struck down National Security Act detentions of four men in Bulandshahr accused of moving three truckloads of urea without bills. A bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Achal Sachdev held that where black-marketing is the main charge, the special law against it applies. That law caps detention at six months, and the court said using the NSA to stretch it to a year was a misuse, LiveLaw and Amar Ujala reported. The four are to be released unless they are wanted in another case. The ruling matters well beyond Bulandshahr, given how often fertiliser hoarding has drawn tough action.

Pilibhit is tense. On Monday night in Amariya, an argument over a Ramlila committee's accounts ended in rifle fire that killed brothers Ankit and Mohit Gupta and 14-year-old Kunal Srivastava, Amar Ujala, NewsX and Republic Bharat reported. Police said main accused Kaushal Gupta and two others were taken into custody, and a licensed rifle and an illegal pistol were seized. Police are posted in the town.

Nothing new on paddy: centres in the waterlogged districts are still due to open on Thursday. We found no SP reply to Asaduddin Owaisi's seat dare.