Overview

• At a Lucknow event, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath transferred Rs 1,500 crore in Ujjwala refill subsidies to 1.86 crore beneficiaries, continuing the policy of free LPG refills on Holi and Diwali.
• Adityanath warned that anyone disrupting festival celebrations would be jailed and said those who harass women would face consequences, invoking “Yamraj” to signal zero tolerance.
• The Uttar Pradesh government publicized data stating 256 alleged hardened criminals were killed in 15,726 police encounters over about 8.5 years, with 31,960 arrests and 18 police fatalities.
• Akhilesh Yadav rejected the encounter numbers as fear-mongering, alleging fake encounters and citing cases where police personnel were jailed, while accusing the government of broader governance failures.
• The BJP framed the drive as restoring festival peace versus pre-2017 “riots,” as officials linked heightened vigilance to recent unrest in Bareilly and paired it with appeals to buy swadeshi products.