MUZAFFARNAGAR, INDIA: Voting got underway Saturday in India’s most populous state Uttar Pradesh in a contest seen as a key test for Narendra Modi halfway into his first term as prime minister.
Uttar Pradesh is home to over 200 million people — more than the entire population of Brazil — and polls there are a bellwether of national politics.
“All voters must take part in this huge festival of democracy and cast their ballots in big numbers,” Modi implored on Twitter Saturday.
But this election is also being seen as a referendum on his controversial ban on high-value notes, a move aimed at combating tax evasion by the rich that has hit poor rural communities hard.
The northern state voted overwhelmingly for Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2014 general election, powering him to victory over the Congress Party that has dominated Indian politics since independence.
This time around the BJP faces a major challenge from the youthful and charismatic current Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, running in an alliance with Congress.
Yadav predicted rural voters would vent their frustration with Modi’s banknote ban and deliver the prime minister a “big jolt.”
“Modi must answer the people,” Yadav told reporters in the state capital Lucknow.
“His credibility will come into question, and that is why he is panicking.”
There were no initial reports of disturbances but security was tight in Muzaffarnagar, with soldiers deployed to guard the nearly 900 polling stations across the state’s western district.
The memory of Hindu-Muslim violence in 2013 that left at least 50 people dead and thousands displaced was fresh in the minds of some voters as they headed to the ballot box.
“We don’t want a repeat of the riots. All we want is peace,” Mohammed Shahid, 60, told AFP in Muzaffarnagar.
Voting will be staggered over several weeks, with results out on March 11, and pollsters put the BJP neck and neck with Yadav’s Samajwadi Party and Congress.
Congress, whose 46-year-old likely next leader Rahul Gandhi has campaigned alongside Yadav, desperately needs a win after a dismal performance in 2014.
Both Modi and Gandhi — scion of the family that has dominated the party for generations — have their seats in Uttar Pradesh, underscoring the importance of the electorally pivotal state.
“The government will be judged on the popularity or lack of popularity of its demonetization policy in India’s most populous state,” said Ashok Malik, a fellow with think-tank Observer Research Foundation.
“There will also be other factors at play in these state polls, but Modi’s BJP will be judged in comparison to its performance in the state in 2014.”
He cautioned against discounting Mayawati, who goes by only one name and is a low-caste leader known as the “Dalit Queen” whose Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) was once seen as unassailable in the state.
With so much at stake halfway through his term, Modi has personally led the campaigning for his party.
But some observers said the BJP’s failure to put forward a local face could backfire, as it did in the neighboring state of Bihar in 2015.
“If it loses UP, it will be this factor that killed its hopes,” said journalist R. Jagannathan in an opinion piece for the Times of India daily.
“The electorate knows it will get Akhilesh Yadav as chief minister if the SP-Congress coalition wins, but it is not sure what will emerge from the black box if BJP wins.”
Test for Modi as India’s biggest state votes
Test for Modi as India’s biggest state votes
US Justice Department official eyes cases against Cuba leaders as Trump floats ‘friendly takeover’
- “Working group” formed to build cases against people connected to the Cuban government
- Trump’s has increasingly displayed aggressive stance against Cuba’s communist leadership
MIAMI: The top Justice Department prosecutor in Miami is considering criminal investigations of Cuban government officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The inquiry comes as President Donald Trump has raised the possibility of a “friendly takeover” of the communist-run island.
Jason Reding Quiñones, the US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, has created a “working group” that includes federal prosecutors and officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies to try to build cases against people connected to the Cuban government and its Communist Party, according to one of the people. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the effort.
It was not immediately clear which Cuban officials the office is targeting or what criminal charges prosecutors may be looking to bring.
The Justice Department said in a statement Friday that “federal prosecutors from across the country work every day to pursue justice, which includes efforts to combat transnational crime.”
The effort is taking place against the backdrop of Trump’s increasingly aggressive stance against Cuba’s communist leadership.
Emboldened by the US capture of Cuba’s close ally, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump last month said his administration was in high-level talks with officials in Havana to pursue “a friendly takeover” of the country. He repeated those claims this week, saying his attention would turn back to Cuba once the war with Iran winds down.
“They want to make a deal so bad,” Trump said of Cuba’s leadership.
While Cuba has faded from Washington’s radar as a major national security threat in recent decades, it remains a priority in the US Attorney’s office in Miami, whose political, economic and cultural life is dominated by Cuban-American exiles.
The FBI field office has a dedicated Cuba group that in 2024 was instrumental in the arrest of former US Ambassador Victor Manuel Rocha on charges of serving as a secret agent of Cuba stretching back to the 1970s.
In recent weeks, several Miami Republicans, in addition to Florida Sen. Rick Scott, have called on the Trump administration to reopen its criminal investigation into the 1996 shootdown of four planes operated by anti-communist exiles.
In a letter to Trump on Feb. 13, lawmakers including Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez highlighted decades-old news reports indicating that former President Raúl Castro — the head of Cuba’s military at the time — gave the order to shoot down the unarmed Cessna aircraft.
“We believe unequivocally that Raúl Castro is responsible for this heinous crime,” lawmakers wrote. “It is time for him to be brought to justice.”
While no indictment against Castro has been announced, Florida’s attorney general said this week that he would open a state-level investigation into the crime.
The Trump administration has also accused Cuba of not cooperating with American counterterrorism efforts, adding it alongside North Korea and Iran to a select few nations the US considers state sponsors of terrorism.
The designation stems from Cuba’s harboring of US fugitives and its refusal to extradite several Colombian rebel leaders while they were engaged in peace talks with the South American nation.
