Morning Pulse: Three SP rebels join BJP in Amethi today as Yogi takes the council race to Varanasi

Uttar Pradesh wakes up to a fight over loyalty. On Tuesday Akhilesh Yadav questioned whether a BJP deputy chief minister had any self-respect left. On Wednesday the BJP plans its answer in Amethi, where three MLAs elected on Samajwadi Party (SP) tickets are due to join it. With the 23 October Legislative Council polls nine days away, both parties are trying to show that the other side's people are restless.

The joining is set for Gauriganj. Amar Ujala and Patrika reported that Rakesh Pratap Singh (Gauriganj), Abhay Singh (Gosainganj) and Vinod Chaturvedi (Kalpi) will formally join the BJP today, with former Union minister Smriti Irani and state BJP president Pankaj Chaudhary present. Amar Ujala said the stage is being built beside Singh's residence on the Gauriganj-Jagdishpur road and that police and PAC have been deployed. Neither report gave a start time.

The move has been coming for a long time. Singh, a three-time SP MLA, cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha election, Amar Ujala reported, and Patrika said the SP later expelled him for anti-party activities. Patrika reported that he describes the switch as standing with the BJP for the nation and Ram, and cites his objection to remarks about the Ramcharitmanas by Swami Prasad Maurya. The reports we read did not say whether the three will give up their assembly seats, and we found no fresh SP reaction to today's event.

The SP's needle came the night before. In a post on X, reported on Tuesday evening by Punjab Kesari and The Statesman, Akhilesh Yadav said Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya would have reacted to his nameplate being removed and would not have accepted a stool in place of a chair if he had self-respect. He alleged that Maurya stayed in government after losing his own election and kept quiet when he lost an important portfolio, and accused him of siding with dominant groups despite coming from a backward class. It was the same day Maurya claimed in Prayagraj that the BJP would sweep all 11 council seats, as we reported last night. We found no reply from Maurya by this morning.

Yogi Adityanath, meanwhile, moves his council campaign east. Newstrack reported that he begins a two-day Varanasi visit today with an afternoon conference of teachers and graduate voters from eight districts of the division at Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, backing BJP candidates for the Varanasi seats. Amar Ujala said he will also speak to workers about booth management. He is due to pray at the Kaal Bhairav and Kashi Vishwanath temples and to review law and order, development work and preparations for a proposed air show, Newstrack reported.

Loops from last night stay open. We found no SP response to Adityanath's Bareilly speech, in which he tied the party to mafias, and no reply from the Chief Electoral Officer to the SP's duplicate-voter memorandum. We also found no report that the INDIA bloc petition against the Election Commission has been listed for hearing.

In the courts, a Meerut court is due to sentence Muskan Rastogi and Sahil Shukla today for the murder of merchant navy officer Saurabh Rajput, the 'blue drum' case that drew national attention. They were convicted on 30 September, and the prosecution has sought the death penalty, Aaj Tak reported. ETV Bharat reported that a separate Meerut case, in which Ravita and Amardeep were convicted of killing Ravita's husband Amit and staging it as a snakebite, comes up for sentencing on 16 October.

In Muzaffarnagar, two men on a motorcycle shot dead Swami Devanand Bharti, the 81-year-old priest of a Shiv temple on the ITI campus in the Bhaurakalan area, on Tuesday evening, Aaj Tak and ETV Bharat reported. DIG Abhishek Singh told ETV Bharat that the motive and the attackers were not yet known. Police said early findings suggest the attackers may have known the priest, and three teams are on the case. No arrest had been reported by this morning.