Evening Pulse: SP rebels cross over in Amethi, then High Court orders UP panchayat polls in three months

Since this morning, the loyalty fight we flagged has played out in full, and a court in Prayagraj has handed every party a second, bigger test. Three MLAs elected on Samajwadi Party (SP) tickets formally joined the BJP in Amethi, Yogi Adityanath told teachers in Varanasi not to trust the SP 'even by mistake', and Keshav Prasad Maurya answered Akhilesh Yadav's jibe about his self-respect. Then, at 4 pm, the Allahabad High Court ordered panchayat elections within three months.

The Gauriganj event went ahead as planned. PTI, via ThePrint, reported that Rakesh Pratap Singh (Gauriganj), Abhay Singh (Gosainganj) and Vinod Chaturvedi (Kalpi) joined in the presence of state BJP president Pankaj Chaudhary and national general secretary Smriti Irani, with several state ministers and former Union minister Sanjeev Balyan on stage. Abhay Singh cited the Ramcharitmanas row and vowed to see an SP candidate defeated in 2027; Chaturvedi cited development in Bundelkhand, PTI reported. The SP had expelled Rakesh Pratap Singh and Abhay Singh in June 2025, after the 2024 Rajya Sabha cross-voting.

The question we raised this morning, whether the three would give up their seats, went unanswered. None of the reports we read mentioned resignations. Irani used the stage to attack the Congress, saying 'the Gandhi family does not have the courage to contest elections alone in Amethi', and Chaudhary predicted a third straight BJP government in 2027.

The SP did respond. Its spokesperson Udayveer Singh told The Week that the party had already expelled the three and called them 'vestigial organs, like an appendix'. The Week's analysis read the choice of seats, spread from Awadh to Bundelkhand, as a BJP bid to unsettle the SP's PDA (backward classes, Dalits and minorities) pitch, but noted the risk of angering BJP workers who had hoped for those tickets.

The Akhilesh-Maurya exchange also moved. In a post on X, reported by Lalluram and Pardaphash, Maurya said self-respect is defined by ideas, principles and public service, not by the chair of power. He accused Akhilesh of dynastic politics, mocked his 'family etiquette' and predicted that voters would clear the SP out in 2027. We found no further reply from Akhilesh by evening.

In Varanasi, Adityanath turned the 23 October council polls into a sharper attack. Amar Ujala reported that he told teacher and graduate voters at Sampurnanand Sanskrit University to beware of 'chameleons' and called the SP's PDA a 'family development authority', citing its Rajya Sabha picks. IANS reported that he alleged a 'Saifai syndicate' controlled recruitment under the SP, and announced health cover of Rs 5 lakh for teachers from basic schools to universities. These are his claims; we found no SP reply to the speech.

The day's biggest institutional news came from the High Court. A bench of Justices Ajit Kumar and Garima Prasad ordered that the three-tier panchayat polls be held within three months, and upheld the arrangement keeping outgoing village pradhans in charge as administrators until then, Amar Ujala and Dynamite News reported. Dynamite News said the court refused to make the polls wait for the OBC commission, which must continue its work, and that Panchayati Raj Minister OP Rajbhar welcomed the order while keeping a Supreme Court appeal open. The full written order was not yet available.

In Meerut, District Judge Arvind Kumar Mishra sentenced Muskan Rastogi and Sahil Shukla to death for murdering merchant navy officer Saurabh Rajput in the 'blue drum' case, the Free Press Journal and Times Now Hindi reported. Defence advocate Rekha Jain sought leniency, citing Muskan's two daughters. Saurabh's mother Renu Devi said the family had got the justice it fought for. An appeal to the High Court is open to the convicts; none had been announced in the reports we read.

In Muzaffarnagar, the investigation into the killing of 81-year-old priest Swami Devanand Bharti continued through the day. We found no report of an arrest or an identified motive by this evening.