Evening Pulse: Ayodhya becomes a dare as Uttar Pradesh's 2027 battle starts early

Uttar Pradesh's next Assembly election is expected early next year, but this weekend it felt much closer. The two main rivals spent it daring each other.

At a rally in Utraula in Balrampur on Saturday, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath took up Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav's challenge to contest from Ayodhya, and turned it back on him. "I invite you to file your nomination from Ayodhya. I will also try my luck there once," he said. He also launched 78 projects worth over Rs 803 crore and mocked the SP's PDA slogan as a "Parivar Development Authority".

Akhilesh replied in Lucknow on Sunday. He said the SP's likely Ayodhya candidate, Pawan Pandey, was enough to defeat the BJP, told Yogi to get his own ticket confirmed first, and pointed to the SP's win in the Faizabad Lok Sabha seat, which includes Ayodhya, in 2024.

Akhilesh also joined the national row over the voter-roll revision. He condemned the police action against Cockroach Janta Party protesters in Delhi, demanded the release of detained students, and said the Chief Election Commissioner should resign. He accused the Election Commission of working for the BJP and asked whether any action had been taken in UP over fraudulent Form-7 applications used to seek deletion of voters' names. He also claimed, citing what he had heard, that people from Ghaziabad were among those who mistreated women protesters. No BJP rebuttal to these remarks appeared in the reports we read.

A second fight broke out over a building. On Jayaprakash Narayan's birth anniversary, Akhilesh visited the JP International Centre in Lucknow, a memorial built under his government, and accused the government of selling it. Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak called the visit a drama, said the centre had been leased out for better management, and alleged its cost rose from Rs 17 crore to Rs 850 crore under the SP government.

The Congress had a difficult day of its own. Aradhana Mishra took charge as the new state Congress president at the party office in Lucknow, but supporters of former state chief Ajay Rai and corporator Mamta Chaudhary clashed during the event, according to several reports. Rai later sat on a dharna at the office and demanded action against Chaudhary.

Away from politics, the flooded Gomti in Lucknow has started to recede after two weeks, though some localities remain waterlogged. In Gautam Buddha Nagar, prohibitory orders citing planned protests and the festival season stay in force until October 20.