Starting the year with a big win in the assembly elections, the BJP also made inroads into the Samajwadi Party strongholds of Azamgarh and Rampur – building momentum for the 2024 general election.
The party won the Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan’s bastion of Rampur, winning the by-elections for the Lok Sabha seat and the Rampur Sadar assembly constituency, which had elected Khan for 10 consecutive terms.
But its winning streak was broken with bypoll losses in the Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency – which fell vacant after the death of SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav – and the Khatauli assembly constituency which it had won in the 2017 and 2022 state elections.
This year saw the use of bulldozers to demolish properties of alleged gangsters and the resumption of temple-mosque disputes in Varanasi and Mathura.
Dashing hopes of a resurgent SP under Akhilesh Yadav, the BJP registered a comfortable victory in the February-March assembly polls, paving the way for the return of Yogi Adityanath as chief minister for a second consecutive term – a Rare, for the first time, the feat of decades in the politics of Uttar Pradesh
The states where the nation’s focus was on elections saw a better performance by the SP, which won 111 out of 403 seats as against 47 five years ago. But Congress (two seats) and Bahujan Samaj Party (one seat) were defeated.
Later, the BJP won the Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats, where bypolls were held. Akhilesh Yadav And Azam Khan vacated him when he became MLA.
The BJP also won the Muslim-dominated Rampur Sadar assembly seat, which had been Khan’s bastion for nearly 45 years. BJP’s Akash Saxena defeated Khan’s favorite Asim Raja.
The by-election was held there following Khan’s disqualification from the assembly, after a district court sent him to jail for three years in a hate speech case.
Another conviction disqualified two-time BJP MLA Vikram Singh Saini from Khatauli in Muzaffarnagar. The Rashtriya Lok Dal won the bypoll defeating Saini’s wife who was fielded by the BJP.
Next are the urban local body elections. Earlier this week, the Allahabad High Court quashed an election notification by the UP government for not following the Supreme Court’s guidelines while reserving seats for the Other Backward Classes in these elections.
As the opposition targets the BJP over the “anti-OBC” development, Adityanath has said that municipal elections will be held only with OBC reservation. A day after the legal setback, his government has appointed a commission to set things right.
The “uncle-nephew” drama continued on the sidelines.
At Mulayam Singh Yadav’s behest, his son Akhilesh Yadav and brother Shivpal Singh Yadav came together ahead of the assembly elections, but parted ways again after the results were out and the senior Yadav appeared to be moving towards the ruling BJP.
However, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s death on 10 October brought uncle and nephew together again, for the fourth time in six years. Shivpal Singh Yadav also campaigned for Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple in Mainpuri to protect Mulayam’s “legacy”.
During the campaign, Akhilesh Yadav touched his uncle’s feet.
In Adityanath’s second term, bulldozers demolished properties of alleged criminals and those involved in the riots, earning the chief minister the sobriquet “Baba Bulldozer”. The recipients included “politician-criminals” Mukhtar Ansari and Ateeq Ahmed.
The opposition accused the BJP government of mainly targeting Muslims. But the government said that these properties were built illegally and every time the process of law was followed in demolishing them.
The Adityanath government dialed down or removed loudspeakers from mosques and other religious establishments. The authorities also acted swiftly in cases of prayers being offered on roads and other public places.
The construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya gained momentum, and the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust said devotees would be able to worship there in January 2024.
But construction of a new mosque on a five-acre site in Ayodhya is yet to begin, with the Indo-Islamic Foundation awaiting approval of the building plans by the Ayodhya Development Authority.
The 2019 Supreme Court verdict on the Ayodhya dispute had paved the way for the construction of a Ram temple at the site where the Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992. The court had also ordered allotment of land to build the new mosque.
The Sulagati Gyanvapi Masjid-Kashi Vishwanath Temple dispute hit the headlines again this year after a Varanasi court allowed a videographic survey of the mosque located next to the temple. The district court is hearing a petition by a group of women seeking permission to offer daily prayers in front of idols on the wall of the mosque. The Allahabad High Court is also in the picture.
At the same time, the cases related to the Krishna Janmabhoomi-Idgah Masjid dispute are being heard in the courts of Mathura as well as in the High Court.
The UP government ordered a survey of private madrassas across the state, triggering a controversy for some time. It said it plans to ensure that subjects such as science and computer literacy are also taught there.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)
Apart from the Deepotsav on the banks of the Sarayu river in Ayodhya, where lakhs of earthen lamps are lit ahead of Diwali, this year the state also hosted the month-long Kashi-Tamil Sangamam, showcasing the cultural bond between Tamil Nadu and the pilgrimage city .
Four people were killed and at least 10 injured in a major fire at Lucknow’s Levana Suites Hotel, exposing the blatant negligence towards fire safety norms.
As 2022 nears its end, the state government has sent its ministers abroad to invite investors to a global summit in February.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)