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Maurya, BJP UP President, said his party is moving towards cleaner and transparent politics Elections 2017   : Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to clean up politics. The man running the ruling party's campaign in a crucial state election, who is facing 11 criminal cases, says it will take a while. "At a time of elections, one has to forget every other aspect and just focus on victory," said Keshav Prasad Maurya, as his three-vehicle convoy carrying police with automatic rifles sped through the countryside. Polls open on Saturday in Uttar Pradesh, with a population of some 220 million, and on the ground Modi's loftier aims for a new India seem far away. Maurya, the state's president for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), says the charges against him are false and politically motivated; unless he is convicted, they do not prevent him from holding office. His bosses are not concerned. An official at the prime minister's office refer...

Western UP has 140 Assembly seats spread over 26 districts which will vote in first two phases With the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance going strong after initial hiccups, Bahujan Samaj Party and Bharatiya Janata Party have been forced to rework their strategies in the western belt of   UP Assembly Elections 2017   where Muslim voters are a major force to reckon with. Western UP has 140 Assembly constituencies spread over 26 districts which will go to polls in the first two phases on February 11 and 15. BSP, which was expecting a cake walk in the wake of feud in the Yadav family, to provide a strong alternative to BJP, got a blow with the coming together of two young faces of Indian politics - Akhilesh and Rahul - who do not have any previous record of hobnobbing with the saffron party. To win over Muslims, BSP fielded has fielded as many as 50 Muslim candidates in the first two phases as it felt that Muslim vote along with its own core Dalit vote bank would see ...