Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt arrived in Lucknow on Saturday to a hero's welcome by thousands, who hailed him as the Samajwadi Party nominee for the prestigious Lucknow Lok Sabha seat.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's birthday on Thursday escalated political activity in the state as both ruling party and opposition activists took to the streets to stress their respective points. It was a day of unique demonstrations by each of the four key political parties -- the Samajwadi Party, Bhartiya Janata Party, the Congress and to top it all the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party.
Come January 15 and it is not unusual for Bahujan Samaj Party president and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati to show her paranoia invariably on account of the perennial accusation that the collection of money for her birthday 'gift', more often than not, culminates into extortion.
On her birthday, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati had an answer for each of her detractors: the Samjawadi Party, the Bhartiya Janata Party and the Congress. "If Congressmen have a problem with my celebrating my birthday, then we could also observe Congress president Sonia Gandhi's birthday as ghulami diwas (slavery day) - considering she is a person of foreign origin, for which she has always been targeted by other opposition parties", Mayawati said.
In the backdrop of an outcry by the opposition over alleged extortion by Bahujan Samajwadi Party cadres for her birthday celebrations, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Thursday claimed there was not even the "remotest link" between her birthday and the killing of the PWD engineer in Auriyya.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Thursday made it quite eviodent that he did not favour India's repeated demand to seek custody of the alleged Pakistani perpetrators of the Mumbai terrorist attacks
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