Afternoon Pulse: Rajnath brings the 'vote chori' fight to Lucknow as a Navratri meal video stirs Pilibhit

The question of who can be trusted with the voter rolls moved up a level on Friday morning. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Lucknow's MP, took the BJP's answer to the opposition's 'vote chori' campaign to the party's state office in Lucknow, a day after Akhilesh Yadav accused the Election Commission of hiding details of 16.18 lakh new voters. By noon, a second row was running in parallel: the BJP's charge that Samajwadi Party leaders ate chicken during Navratri.

Rajnath aimed mostly at Rahul Gandhi. According to Amar Ujala, he said Congress keeps losing because of 'kaam chori', idleness, rather than vote theft, and that the opposition's real target was not the Special Intensive Revision or Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar but democratic institutions themselves. ETV Bharat reported that he called the opposition and student protests against the SIR in Delhi an attempt to derail the country through anarchy, and accused Congress and its allies of wanting a Bangladesh-style change of government. He mocked Rahul Gandhi's promised 'hydrogen bomb' as not even a Diwali firecracker. Neither report carried a response from Congress or the SP, and we found none by early afternoon.

The press conference did not mention Akhilesh by name, but it landed on the same ground he chose on Thursday. Since this morning's Pulse, we have also found that the state's Chief Electoral Officer had already addressed the 16.18 lakh figure on 7 October, when it first surfaced in a media report. As reported by ANI via Devdiscourse and by The Pioneer, the CEO said the number counts Form-6 applications collected door to door before the draft roll was published on 6 January, not voters automatically added, and that there is no formula requiring a fixed share of forms to be accepted. We found no fresh reply from the Commission to the SP's booklet released on Thursday.

In Pilibhit, the BJP opened a different front. Aaj Tak reported that the party's state X handle shared a video of SP leaders eating non-vegetarian food during Navratri and accused the party of insulting Sanatan. Aaj Samaaj and UP Tak both identified Rajya Sabha MP Ramji Lal Suman among those in the video, reportedly at the home of a local SP leader after a PDA meeting on 13 October. State minister and Pilibhit MLA Sanjay Singh Gangwar demanded an inquiry. SP district president Dharmesh Gangwar replied that the BJP was policing what people eat and trying to divert attention from real issues. The outlets have not independently verified the footage.

In Varanasi, police said a two-storey house in the Sarnath area that collapsed after a blast on Thursday evening was being used to make firecrackers illegally. ANI reported that two children and a woman were pulled out injured. ETV Bharat reported that the owner, Raju Khan, was arrested late on Thursday after what police described as an exchange of fire in which he was shot in the leg. Residents told reporters they had complained about the unit before. Search teams were rechecking the debris, though police said no one else was believed trapped.

In the Shiva Sharma death case, there is still no arrest. Amar Ujala reported on Friday that Hazratganj police have begun proceedings to attach Shraddha Dubey's property and that her trail went cold in Nepal's Dang district. Aaj Tak had earlier reported CCTV footage placing her in Nepal. In a video released on Thursday, Dubey said Shiva died by suicide and that she was ready to tell police the truth. Those are her claims; Shiva's mother has accused her of assault and blackmail.

Two loops from this morning remain open. In Meerut, the court was due to sentence Ravita and Amardeep today for the murder of Amit Kashyap, which they staged as a snakebite; we had found no report of the sentence by 1 pm. On the panchayat polls, we found no sign that the pradhans' body has filed in the Supreme Court or that the government has settled its legal position.