Evening Pulse: Akhilesh takes the vote-roll fight to the Supreme Court as Yogi pays farmers

Since this morning, both questions we raised have been answered. Akhilesh Yadav did go to Delhi, and he did more than turn up. Yogi Adityanath did pay farmers in Gorakhpur, and he used the stage to attack the Samajwadi Party's (SP) record in government. By evening, UP's 2027 contest had two clear arguments. The opposition says the voter rolls are rigged. The government says its relief money now reaches farmers in full.

Akhilesh was one of the lead petitioners when the INDIA bloc filed a plea in the Supreme Court over the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, The Statesman and ANI reported. The other lead names were Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge, Tejashwi Yadav and Trinamool's Saugata Roy. Police stopped the march on Bhagwan Dass Road, about 600 metres from the court. Akhilesh and Rahul Gandhi climbed onto a vehicle to speak to the crowd. This was a change for the SP chief, who had skipped the bloc's previous two Delhi marches.

According to ANI, Akhilesh accused the BJP of colluding with the Election Commission. He demanded the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and said the protest would go on. He brought the fight home as well. Even after the SIR in Uttar Pradesh, he said, the rolls still carry "a large number of double votes". He also dismissed the shift of Delhi's protest site away from Jantar Mantar. Congress leader Sachin Pilot alleged that police used force and detained opposition leaders. None of the reports we read carried a police response. Nor did they carry a response from the BJP or the commission to Monday's petition, though both have rejected the charges in the past.

In Gorakhpur, Adityanath sent Rs 493 crore by direct benefit transfer to 9,18,091 farmers. The money is input subsidy for crops lost to floods, heavy rain, hailstorms and cyclones, ETV Bharat and The Statesman reported. He said the payments followed digital crop surveys and were made within eight to 10 days of the damage. He put total disaster relief this monsoon at about Rs 1,000 crore. He also said families of disaster victims should get Rs 4 lakh within 24 hours.

He then turned to politics. He said middlemen had taken farmers' money under earlier Congress and SP governments. He repeated his claim that only Rs 800 crore of Rs 3,200 crore in central aid after Cyclone Hudhud in 2014 reached farmers. Agriculture Minister Surya Pratap Shahi said the government had spent Rs 69,163 crore on farmers, more than three times what he said the Mayawati and Akhilesh governments spent. These are the government's own figures. The reports did not test them, and the SP had not answered them by this evening.

One practical announcement matters for this week. Adityanath said paddy procurement centres are opening now where the rain spared crops. In waterlogged districts, centres will open on 15 October for paddy, jowar, bajra and maize, ETV Bharat and APN News reported. The morning reports also said cheaper cooperative farm loans would start today. We found no confirmation that they did.

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi added a dare of his own. Speaking in Azamgarh district, he said Adityanath should contest from Sambhal and Akhilesh from Gorakhpur, ANI and Prabhat Khabar reported. That turns the weekend's Ayodhya exchange back on both leaders. He alleged an "understanding" between the two and accused the SP of taking Muslim votes for granted. The SP has not replied, and neither the SP nor the BJP has named an Ayodhya candidate. Owaisi's alliance offer to the SP also remains unanswered.

UP Congress has still announced no action over Sunday's scuffle at its Lucknow office, Aaj Tak reported. Ajay Rai and councillor Mamta Chaudhary, whose supporters clashed, have each asked the leadership to act against the other side. The SP has been watching its ally's trouble. SP MP Shiv Pal Singh Patel told ANI that whoever raised a shoe should face action, and that the episode hurt the party's image.