Defying pollsters, exit polls, and predictions, the BJP scored a hat trick in Haryana, albeit with a narrow lead in the recent Assembly election. It formed a government on its own sans any ally, and Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini assumed office for a second consecutive term with relative ease. But the euphoria did not last long.

In the first Assembly session convened after the new government took over, the opposition, led by the Congress and the electorally diminished Indian National Lok Dal, attacked the government on the issue of fertilizer shortages in the sowing season. The government denied it and accused the opposition of spreading rumours. Significantly, the BJP at the Centre too has denied a fertilizer crisis.

However, the fact is that farmers in Haryana, including women, were seen queuing up for hours for bags of diammonium phosphate (DAP) outside shops selling the fertilizer through Aadhaar-linked point of sale (PoS) machines. DAP is an essential fertilizer required at the beginning of the sowing season for Rabi (October-December) crops. According to reports from various districts, farmers spent days together at grain markets awaiting fertilizer supplies but returned empty-handed.

Matters came to a head on November 9, when Ram Bhagat, a 34-year-old marginal farmer from Bhikewala village, died by suicide after repeated attempts to get DAP failed. His death triggered huge protests.

Also Read | Haryana: Caste as the swing factor

Inderjit Singh, vice president of the All India Kisan Sabha, said women were seen queuing up from 4 am onwards to get DAP. The uncertainty and the pressure of sowing led to minor skirmishes among farmers forcing the sale of fertilizer even at police stations.

“During this crisis, the Chief Minister has repeatedly denied there is any shortage. The very day he said that, Naveen Jindal, BJP MP from Kurukshetra, said there was a terrible scarcity of DAP in his constituency. Interestingly, this includes Ladwa, the Chief Minister’s own Assembly constituency,” Inderjit Singh told Frontline.

The economist Vikas Rawal, who has worked extensively on issues relating to agriculture, noted that he found it strange that despite the persistent shortage of fertilizer, there has not been any impact on agricultural output at the national level. This, he said, raises suspicion that the output figures might have been fudged.

According to Rawal, there was a 38 per cent shortage of DAP between the assessed requirement and the availability of fertilizer in October. Supply shortages can be explained by reduced imports because of high global prices. However, the shortage in fertilizer persisted despite the fact that the international prices of DAP had not gone up.

“In October 2019, the availability of DAP was 25.5 lakh tonnes. In October 2024, it was 11.45 tonnes, which was 55 per cent less than in October 2019. This is the scale of shortage that we have,” he told Frontline.

He said despite the BJP getting elected to Haryana once again, nothing had been done to deal with procurement, marketing, credit supply, or fertilizer supply. “The Meri Fasal, Mera Byora portal to digitise crop records is a gimmick. Data on this portal show a high proportion of tenant farmers. I am not sure whether there are this many tenant farmers in Haryana. Are these fictitious claims of tenancy in order to claim benefits?” he asked, adding that the introduction of the Aadhaar-linked PoS machines for fertilizer sale since 2017 had affected farmers badly.

Synthetic fertilizers, said Rawal, are important for India’s food security and agricultural growth. Over the past three decades, he said, domestic production had fallen short of fertilizer demand, and India had become increasingly import dependent during this period. The share of imports in the total supply of fertilizer ranged from 60 per cent for DAP to 100 per cent for muriate of potash (MoP).

According to Rawal, even the raw material for the domestic production of phosphatic fertilizers was imported, mostly in the form of phosphoric acid. A high dependence on imports had rendered agricultural production and food security vulnerable to the vagaries of international markets and geopolitical situations, he said.

Then there were global monopolies. Around 84 per cent of MoP came from 7 companies, and the top 10 fertilizer companies in the world accounted for 38 per cent of the global production.

Government in denial mode

The Indian demand for fertilizers, he said, was the highest at the time of Kharif (May-July) and Rabi sowing. During the Kharif season of 2020, when shortages were first felt around August, the Centre held a meeting with State Agriculture Ministers and asserted that there was no shortage of fertilizer in the country. This, he said, was stated on the floor of Parliament as well in 2021 and 2022.

On November 1, 2021, the Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers refuted the claim of shortages and stated that the government was constantly monitoring the production, imports, and movement of fertilizers to ensure that farmers received adequate quantities. In July 2022, he reiterated in Parliament that fertilizer availability was at comfortable levels for the Kharif season. In November, he stated that there was more than enough to meet the needs of the Rabi season.

Rawal, however, said that the shortfall was consistent in 2020, 2021, and 2022 compared with 2019. In 2023 as well, the availability of DAP had not reached the levels of 2019. There were similar shortages of potash, MoP, and urea, which led to black marketing.

An issue he highlighted was how under the method of distributing fertilizer through electronic PoS machines, a limited amount of fertilizer was allocated per unit of land owned by farmers. This forced them to turn to the black market to meet the shortfall.

Significantly, the Haryana government has not denied the existence of a black market. In response to a question in the Assembly this year, Haryana Agriculture Minister Shyam Singh Rana gave details of raids and other supply stabilisation methods in the context of black-marketing of fertilizer. But he stuck to the government’s position that there was no shortage of DAP.

Stubble burning

In addition to fertilizer shortage and tardy paddy procurement, the farming community has been vexed by the penalties for stubble burning, or the burning of the residual paddy or wheat straw after harvest. Generally, it is done after the harvest of the Kharif crop in October in preparation for the sowing for Rabi that occurs in November.

“The biggest pollutants are construction activities, vehicles, firecrackers, and industry. But farmers are targeted for congesting the lungs of city dwellers. Burning of stubble alone does not lead to so much pollution. Besides, what option does the farmer have or is offered? Can the stubble be used as cattle feed? Burning stubble affects the farmer too. But sowing has to take place at the appropriate time. The issue is raised every October, and then they forget all about it till the next season,” said Inderjit Singh.

In fact, the Agriculture Ministry had, on December 9, 2021, assured farmers protesting at the Delhi borders in writing that they would be exempt from any criminal liability for stubble burning. Within a month of assuming office, however, the Haryana government doubled the existing fine.

On top of it, in the first week of November, the Centre issued a new set of rules under the Commission for Air Quality Management in National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas. The new CAQM Rules (Imposition, Collection and Utilization of Environmental Compensation for Stubble Burning) have fixed different slabs of fines on the basis of the acreage: Rs.5,000 for those owning less than 2 acres, Rs.10,000 for 2 to 5 acres, Rs.30,000 for 5 acres or above. In addition, crops from farms blacklisted in the records would not be procured.

“What is the connection between stubble burning and crop procurement? The farmer has a right to sell his produce in the market. It is vindictive. Now drones are used to identify fires due to stubble burning. FIRs are registered, and farmers are expected to turn up at the police station. There is a lot of resentment in both Haryana and Punjab,” said Singh.

He said rather than penalise farmers for stubble burning, the government should take action on issues such as gate passes issued at mandis on fake vehicle numbers and other issues concerning farmers. Recently, in Karnal, the district administration uncovered a scam involving massive deletions of gate passes issued for farmers in the grain markets in the district.

Farmers see red

To compound matters, the State government issued orders in mid-October to all deputy commissioners, district nodal officers, and agriculture directors to make “red entries” in the farm records and lodge FIRs against those caught burning stubble, according to the CAQM’s directions.

The “red mark” entry in the farm records restricts farmers from selling their crop at the mandis through the e-kharid portal for the next two seasons. All deputy (agriculture) directors are to comply with making such entries with respect to stubble-burning offenders.

Also Read | Haryana voters weigh a decade of BJP rule against Congress promises

November 26 will mark the fourth anniversary of the farmers’ siege at Delhi, which will be observed with support from central trade unions and agricultural workers’ unions. “The movement will intensify. It is being said that farmers were not successful in punishing the BJP electorally in the Haryana elections and that the farmers’ movement has lost relevance. This is an incorrect assessment. It was precisely because of farmers’ movements in Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and western Uttar Pradesh that the BJP was reduced to 240 seats in the Lok Sabha,” said Singh.

It is believed that there were efforts to weaken the farmers’ movement in the run-up to the Assembly election. Some farmer outfits unilaterally declared a “Delhi chalo” programme early this year. This did not have the assent of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), the broad front that had led the siege at the borders of Delhi in 2020-21. Distinguishing themselves from the SKM, these outfits claimed that they were non-political, and in several public meetings during elections, they said they were not campaigning for any party.

A farmer leader, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that such statements may have contributed to a certain extent in influencing the outcome of the Haryana election. At the moment, the farming community is vexed over the issue of persistent fertilizer shortages and angry over the imposition of hefty fines for stubble burning. Given the track record of the government in dealing with issues of such magnitude, a resolution of either issue will require a lot of political will and commitment.

The just-concluded byelections in nine Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh have attracted unusual media attention. This could perhaps be attributed to the fact that many see the byelections as a referendum on the future of Chief Minister Adityanath, whom many in the BJP consider the most popular leader after Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The outcome will also determine whether the 2024 Lok Sabha result, which saw the Samajwadi Party (SP) rising as a force to reckon with once again in Uttar Pradesh, marked a permanent shift in the State’s politics.

Political analyst Sharat Pradhan, who has followed Uttar Pradesh politics closely and co-authored the book Yogi Adityanath: Religion, Politics and Power, The Untold Story, told Frontline that no byelection has ever drawn as much attention from the ruling dispensation as these elections have.

“Thanks to Adityanath, these byelections have become a matter of prestige for both the BJP and the opposition, which is represented largely by the SP. The reason is not far to seek: BJP bigwigs in Delhi are believed to have linked Adityanath’s future to the byelections outcome. The Modi-Shah duo is known to have held him responsible for the party’s poor show in the Lok Sabha election, which left the BJP relegated to the number-two position in the country’s most populous State. Amit Shah is believed to have always perceived Adityanath as the biggest obstacle in the way of realising his dream of emerging as Modi’s ‘rightful’ successor, and BJP leaders in Delhi seemed quite inclined to move him out of Lucknow. But Adityanath managed to save his skin by seeking the good offices of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. It is widely believed that the final deal was that he would be given another chance to prove himself in the byelections,” Pradhan said. No wonder Adityanath moved heaven and earth to project himself as the “biggest Hindu Hriday Samrat”, he remarked.

Pradhan also pointed out that in the 2022 Assembly election, the BJP won only three of the 10 seats where byelections became necessary (byelections were held in nine of them), and its allies won two. The SP, on the other hand, had won five.

Also Read | Can the BJP recover in Uttar Pradesh?

Adityanath was indeed the most visible Chief Minister during the campaign for the byelections. No matter what his equations are with the party bosses in Delhi, the BJP clearly cannot afford to ignore him. He campaigned extensively in a number of NDA-ruled States, particularly where the chips were down for the saffron alliance, and his usual polarising tactics were on full display. In Maharashtra, where he addressed 11 public meetings, his “batenge toh katenge” (divided we fall) slogan aimed at consolidating Hindu votes raised hackles not only among the opposition parties but even within the BJP. In Jharkhand too, where he addressed 13 rallies, he stirred up a controversy with his provocative statements.

The spotlight, however, is on Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 Members of Parliament (MPs) to the Lok Sabha, with the outcome expected to impact the political future of not only Adityanath but also that of his party.

Adityanath addressed 13 election rallies and held two roadshows—an unusual effort for just nine Assembly seats in a State with 403, especially since no byelection was announced for the Milkipur Assembly segment of Ayodhya. This seat fell vacant after Samajwadi Party MLA Awadhesh Prasad won the Ayodhya Lok Sabha seat, delivering a significant jolt to the BJP.

It was also not as if the outcome would impact the government’s majority in the Assembly, where the BJP had 255 members. The Congress had just two seats and the SP was a distant second with 105. Yet, the byelection outcome was expected to have a ripple effect for the State’s politics.

The Congress chose not to field candidates against the SP after seat-sharing talks fell through, making it a direct BJP versus SP contest. Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party fielded candidates in all nine seats. Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) tried its luck in three seats including Ghaziabad, which incidentally had the maximum number of candidates—14.

Blame on party leadership

The SP-Congress alliance walked away with 44 seats in the recent Lok Sabha election (the SP got 37; the Congress, seven). The saffron party got 33, marking a dramatic decline from the 71 seats it won in 2014 and 62 in 2019. Modi’s third term was robbed of the glow of the brute majority that marked his previous terms, making the government dependent on support from the Telugu Desam Party and the Janata Dal (United). Soon, a blame game followed with some pointing fingers at the party’s central leadership, which had apparently chosen the candidates.

“Adityanath’s hands were tied,” went the refrain as there were whispers of an intense tug of war between the Chief Minister and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who had allegedly thrown his weight behind some rebel State leaders. Though the party leadership dismissed all this as rumour-mongering, Adityanath reportedly faced an internal rebellion for months after the Lok Sabha results were out. But he got a free hand in picking candidates for the byelections and in the campaigning.

In August, he deployed 30 Ministers and 15 other senior party leaders as “caretakers” in the poll-bound seats and assigned cluster-wise responsibilities to them. The party organised “gram chaupals” for last-mile connection with the voters. Still betting on Hindu consolidation and the “Ayodhya effect”, it organised “Ayodhya Deepotsava” on October 30, lighting 25 lakh diyas along the Saryu river.

The seats where byelections were held were Ghaziabad in the National Capital Region, Sisamau in Kanpur, Meerapur in Muzaffarnagar, Phulpur in Prayagraj, Karhal in Mainpuri, Khair in Aligarh, Katehari in Ambedkar Nagar, Majhawan in Mirzapur, and Kundarki in Moradabad. Eight of these seats fell vacant as the sitting legislators got elected as MPs.

The SP won four of these in 2022—Karhal, Katehari, Kundarki and Sisamu; the BJP won Ghaziabad, Phulpur and Khair, and its ally NISHAD Party won Majhawan. Jayant Chaudhary’s Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), which had won Meerapur, is now with the NDA. So the NDA has to win at least five of the nine seats if it wants to claim to have retained all its seats.

A byelection for the Sisamau Assembly seat became a necessity after Irfan Solanki, the SP MLA, was convicted in a criminal case.

The BJP fielded candidates in eight seats, leaving one for its ally RLD. Adityanath has often faced criticism for allegedly ignoring Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Dalits, but this time he tried to counter the SP’s PDA pitch─pichchda (OBC), Dalit (Scheduled Castes), and alpsankhyak (minority). The BJP fielded four OBC and one Dalit candidate in the byelections, a move that also probably marked an attempt to silence dissenters within the party and create a parallel OBC leadership within the State unit.

Also Read | Why the BJP suffered a shocking defeat in Faizabad, the home of the Ram Mandir

This time, the BJP also depended on party veterans and their kin to win. Former MP Rajveer Diler’s son Surendra Diler contested from Khair and former MLA Deepak Patel (whose mother was a former MP) from Phulpur. In Katehari, the BJP fielded three-term MLA and former BSP leader Dharmraj Nishad.

Future strategies

The Assembly byelection outcome will indicate whether the BJP will change its course ahead of the 2027 Assembly election in the State, when it will seek a third straight term. It will also determine whether the party will stick to Adityanath as its chief ministerial face.

Political commentator and author Rasheed Kidwai told Frontline that the byelections were “a litmus test for Chief Minister Adityanath and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav”. “If the BJP fails to get six seats in the byelections, the clamour for Adityanath’s removal, currently spearheaded by Keshav Prasad Maurya, will continue. Behind the scenes, Adityanath also faces stiff opposition from a section of the BJP at the national level that views him as Modi’s possible successor in 2029 or earlier. According to this school of thought, if Adityanath retains Uttar Pradesh in 2027 and gets a third term as chief minister in the country’s most populous and politically significant State, his claim as Modi’s successor would become substantially stronger,” Kidwai said.

Bypolls for 15 assembly constituencies across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala, and Uttarakhand are set to take place on Wednesday, November 20. Voting will commence at 7 a.m., with vote counting scheduled for November 23.

Bypolls in UP

In Uttar Pradesh, byelections will be held in Katehari, Karhal, Meerapur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan, Sisamau, Khair, Phulpur, and Kundarki. A total of 90 candidates are contesting in these constituencies, with Ghaziabad having the highest number of candidates at 14. There are 34,35,974 registered voters in the state, comprising 18,46,846 men, 15,88,967 women, and 161 third-gender voters. Ghaziabad has the largest voter base, while Sisamau has the smallest.

This marks the first electoral challenge for the INDIA bloc and the NDA in the politically significant state since the Lok Sabha elections.

In the 2022 assembly elections, the SP secured victories in Sisamau, Katehari, Karhal, and Kundarki, while the BJP claimed Phulpur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan, and Khair. The Meerapur seat was won by the BJP’s ally, the RLD.

Bypolls in Punjab

In Punjab, four constituencies—Gidderbaha, Dera Baba Nanak, Chabbewal (SC), and Barnala—will go to the polls.

The by-elections were prompted by the fact that the legislators representing these constituencies were elected to the Lok Sabha during the general elections earlier this year.

Forty-five candidates, including three women, are in the fray. A total of 6.96 lakh voters are eligible to exercise their franchise.

The bypolls will decide the fate of key contestants, including BJP nominee and former Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal, Congress’s Amrita Warring, Jatinder Kaur, AAP’s Hardeep Singh Dimpy Dhillon, Dr Ishank Kumar Chabbewal and BJP’s Kewal Singh Dhillon, Sohan Singh Thandal and Ravikaran Singh Kahlon.

Amrita Warring is the wife of Punjab Congress chief and Ludhiana MP Amrinder Singh Raja Warring. Jatinder Kaur is the spouse of Gurdaspur MP and former Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa.

Besides Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, bypolls will also be held for the Palakkad seat in Kerala and Kedarnath in Uttarakhand.

A fire ripped through the neonatal unit of a hospital in northern India, killing 10 newborns and injuring 17, the authorities said.

Emergency responders rescued 38 newborns from the ward, which housed 49 infants at the time of the incident, said Uttar Pradesh state’s Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak on Saturday.

The fire broke out at 10:30pm (17:00 GMT) on Friday at the Maharani Lakshmibai Medical College in Jhansi, about 450km (280 miles) south of the national capital, New Delhi.

“Seventeen of the injured are receiving treatment in different wings and some private hospitals,” Pathak told reporters in Jhansi.

The newborns died from burns and suffocation. Seven of the dead infants have been identified, while efforts were on to identify the remaining three, Pathak said.

The cause of the fire was being investigated, but police said it was most likely caused by a faulty oxygen concentrator.

Footage from the scene showed charred beds and walls inside the ward as anguished families waited outside.

The rescued babies, all only days old, were laid side by side on a bed elsewhere in the hospital as staff hooked them up to intravenous drips.

When the firefighters arrived, the ward was engulfed in flames and smoke. Rescuers had to break through windows to reach the babies.

The incident has raised questions over safety measures at the facility.

While there were fire alarms in the intensive care unit, parents and witnesses said they did not activate during the blaze, with hospital staff acting only after they saw the smoke and fire.

“If the safety alarm had worked, we could have acted sooner and saved more lives,” Naresh Kumar, a parent who lost his baby, told The Associated Press news agency.

Akhtar Hussain, whose son was rescued and was being treated in an adjacent ward, said the tragedy could have been prevented if the hospital had better safety protocols.

One infant remains missing, a government official, who asked not to be identified as he was not authorised to speak to media, told the Reuters news agency.

Pathak said a safety audit of the hospital was carried out in February, followed by a fire drill three months later.

“If any lapses are found, strict action will be taken against those responsible and no one will be spared,” he said.

The Indian Express newspaper reported that a nurse, identified only as Meghna, suffered burn injuries to her leg after attempting to save the newborns and extinguish the flames.

District official Avinash Kumar told The Hindustan Times newspaper that the fire was caused by an electrical short circuit in the unit.

Building fires are common in India due to shoddy construction and a routine disregard for safety regulations. Poor maintenance and lack of proper firefighting equipment also lead to deaths.

Six months back, a similar blaze at a children’s hospital in New Delhi killed seven newborns.

Last month, a huge explosion involving fireworks left dozens of people injured in the state of Kerala.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on October 30 that the transformation of Ayodhya town is a proof of the ‘double-engine government delivering on its promise.’ The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader also asserted that a similar transformation must also happen in Kashi and Mathura towns of Uttar Pradesh by 2047, when India celebrates 100 years of independence.

Ayodhya was transformed into a breathtaking spectacle on Wednesday as it gleamed with the light of 25,12,585 diyas along the banks of the Saryu river in two world-record setting feats during the eighth edition of Deepotsav on Diwali eve.

This was the first Deepotsav since the consecration of the Ram Mandir on January 22, with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath leading the celebrations, along with his cabinet colleagues and Union Tourism and Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.

The records that were set were for the largest display of oil lamps and most number of people performing an “aarti” simultaneously, representatives of the Guinness World Records declared in the evening.

“This is just the beginning and this beginning has to reach its logical conclusion. So by 2047, when the country celebrates 100 years of its independence, Kashi and Mathura must also shine like Ayodhya,” the Chief Minister said.

Kashi, Mathura Court Battles

A court battle is underway for the resolution of the Kashi Vishwanath-Gyanvapi mosque row in Varanasi. A similar court case is on over the Krishna Janam Bhoomi and the Shahi Eidgah dispute in Mathura.

Adityanath said Ayodhya’s transformation was “just the beginning” and part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for the development of the heritage of Sanatan Dharma and taking it to the global stage.

Adityanath hit out at the opposition saying, “just like mafia dons, these barriers would also be eliminated.”

According to government estimates, more than 35 lakh lamps illuminated Ayodhya. Of these, 25,12,585 lamps were lit on 55 ghats, including Ram ki Paidi, along the Saryu river.

Deepotsav saw 1.71 lakh diyas in 2017, 3.01 lakh in 2018, 4.04 lakh in 2019, 6.06 lakh in 2020, 9.41 lakh in 2021, 15.76 lakh in 2022 and 22.23 lakh in 2023, the government said.

Beginning with 1.71 lakh lamps in 2017, the illumination has soared to an impressive 25,12,585 lamps in 2024, casting a radiant glow across Ayodhya. The lighting of more than 25 lakh lamps together set a new world record for the largest oil-lamp display, Guinness World Records adjudicator Pravin Patel announced.

This is just the beginning and this beginning has to reach its logical conclusion.

The other record was set for the first time – the highest number of people performing an “aarti” simultaneously, with 1,121 vedacharyas rotating diyas along the Saryu, Patel said.

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday said that the increasing interest of investors from around the world in the state is evident with investment proposals worth Rs 40 lakh crore that were received during last year’s Global Investors Summit.
Addressing an event, he said, these proposals not only highlight the state’s progress but also reveal the journey of its transformative development journey.
“Over the past seven years, Uttar Pradesh has seen major changes that have improved its reputation both in India and around the world. As a result, investors from across the globe are now drawn to invest in the state. Investment proposals Rs 40 lakh crore received during last year’s Global Investors Summit bear testimony to the growing interest of investors from across the globe in the state,” the minister stated.
He said that previously, (before BJP came to power), the state was struggling with a damaged reputation.
He added that the state had been known for riots, criminal gangs, political corruption, and governance issues, leading to young people facing a jobs crisis, lack of respect, and insecurity. Residents used to be constantly worried about violence which often dampened festivals and celebrations.
“Today, however, the state is free from riots and lawlessness. Previously, investors hesitated to invest in UP and those who did often sought ways to leave. Now the state has created a safe and stable environment that attracts businesses and provides new opportunities for its youth,” Adityanath said.
He also emphasized that the recent Global Investor Summit showcased the state’s economic potential to the nation and Rs 12 lakh crore worth groundbreaking projects have already taken place from the committed proposals. Apart from this, at present, investment proposals of Rs 10 lakh crore are ready.
Highlighting these investments, he said that they not only concern economic growth but also represent vast job opportunities for the state’s youth.
Aligning with PM Narendra Modi’s vision,Currently, one of India’s leading state economies, Uttar Pradesh, aims to achieve a $1 trillion economy by 2029.
He said that once the state that faced an identity crisis, is now attracting investors and tourists because of its secure environment. Uttar Pradesh is now gathering attention from people from across the globe, who look forward to being part of its growth. “
This transformation required significant policy changes by the state government to bring in new opportunities and foster a climate of safety and development,” he added.
Adityanath stated that Uttar Pradesh now has 28 specific investment policies that are designed to attract investors across various sectors. He also praised the state’s rich history, emphasizing the importance of its festivals, especially Dhanteras and Deepotsav.
Yogi said that Dhanvantari, the Hindu god of medicine, was born in the state’s oldest city, Varanasi and this heritage is celebrated across the nation.
The UP chief minister also announced that a grand Deepotsav would be held in Ayodhya on Wednesday to mark a significant occasion of being the first major celebration since Ramlala took his place in his sacred abode after 500 years.

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