'Our leader is Modi and everyone has been saying Modi hai to desh hai'
The expensive giant statues of Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati and party symbol elephant in Uttar Pradesh will remain safe with Samajwadi's star campaigner Akhilesh Yadav saying on Tuesday they will not be pulled down after the change of guard in the state.
The BJP has won just eight out of the 40 zila panchayat seats in Ayodhya, a disappointment for the ruling party in the district on which the Centre and the state government have lavished much attention.
While a few 'bahubalis' managed wins in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, a majority of them were rejected by the voters. According to the results, many alleged dons-turned-politicians failed to make it to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.
Bharatiya Janata Party President Rajnath Singh was on Saturday denied permission to visit riot-hit Muzaffarnagar even as he accused the Samajwadi Party government of selectively targeting his party leaders.
S P Singh Baghel and B L Verma who made it to the Union council of ministers on Wednesday are two prominent Other Backward Classes leaders from Uttar Pradesh.
The Congress, meanwhile, alleged that both the Samajwadi Party and the BJP are hand-in-glove with the criminals and were two sides of the same coin.
To keep their MLAs together, political parties are organising dinner meetings and arranging hotel stays for them ahead of the council elections, which are taking place just three months ahead of the assembly polls in the state.
Will the external affairs minister's foreign travels end up affecting his chances at the hustings?
The Election Commission has rubbished any allegations of misuse of the EVMs.
The ruling Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal combine swept the Zilla Panchayat chairmen polls, elections for which were held Saturday, winning 50 of the 65 seats.
'Taking forward the ideology of Babasaheb Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar and Kanshiram sahib for 'Bahujan Hitaay - Bahujan Sukhaay', the Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshiram) announced Chandra Shekhar Aazad as candidate from Gorakhpur Sadar (322) seat,' the party said in a statement on social media.
The Uttar Pradesh police on Monday gunned down one of the accused in the sensational February 24 killing of a prime witness in the 2005 murder case of then Bahujan Samaj Party MLA Raju Pal in an encounter in Prayagraj.
As the Opposition on Wednesday held its first meeting on the presidential election, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party reached out to several parties across the political spectrum to build a consensus choice for the top constitutional post with senior party leader Rajnath Singh speaking to Sharad Pawar, Mallikarjun Kharge, Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav and Naveen Patnaik, sources said.
In contrast to the inertia in the SP camp, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party showed no complacency in the run-up to the polls this month.
A bench comprising Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Justice Amitava Roy, while allowing the plea of the Pooja Pal, wife of slain leader, asked the probe agency to conclude the probe in the case preferably within six months.
It is speculated that Scindia, known to be very close to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, met the legislators in a bid to feel their pulses in the wake of developments in Karnataka and Goa.
The BSP supremo also ridiculed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for "not taking cognisance" of suicides by Dalit students when his party was in power.
It was sweet revenge for Mulayam Singh Yadav on Tuesday five years after Mayawati famously said "why kill a dead man" after the Samajwadi supremo was ousted by her in a crushing defeat.
Two months after a 22-year-old Dalit woman went missing from Unnao, her decomposed body was recovered from a vacant plot near an ashram constructed by a former minister in Samajwadi Party government Fateh Bahadur Singh, police said on Friday.
The Upper House witnessed unruly scenes, with almost entire the Opposition in its feet over alleged misuse of the Central Bureau of Investigation and demand for discussion on the issue under rule 267 suspending the listed business.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi slammed the UP government over the incident 'Another proof of 'goondaraj' (hooliganism) in UP. When police is not safe how can people be?. My condolences are with family of martyrs and I wish speedy recovery of injured,' he said in a tweet.
UP minister of state for minority welfare Danish Azad Ansari told PTI on Wednesday that the decision was taken at the state cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath a day earlier.
"We had not contemplated that the alliance will fare so badly. People are not able to digest the poll results. It is against their sentiment and aspirations," Mayawati said on Thursday.
According to the findings of the CSDS-Lokniti survey, the BJP saw a marginal increase in its support among the Muslim voters as compared to the 2017 assembly elections.
Hours after Mayawati announced her plans of going solo in future elections in a series of tweets, a senior SP leader accused her of "weakening" the fight for social justice.
The party, however, has retained state president Naresh Uttam.
"Nobody is sympathising with Atiq Ahmad because a criminal should be punished. But anyone who will see this video will question if we are a democracy. Every criminal has the right to be heard in court and be convicted there. But you can see they were killed in police custody in the open," he said.
The BSP chief said she does not want to see any damage to the SP-BSP-RLD alliance.
State deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya among 692 candidates are contesting on 61 seats spread across 12 districts in the fifth phase.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-backed Samajwadi Party rebel candidate Nitin Agarwal was elected deputy speaker of the Uttar Pradesh assembly on Monday, defeating Narendra Verma, the official candidate of Akhilesh Yadav's party, by 244 votes.
Despite this setback, Pandey emphasised that discussions regarding ticket distribution are ongoing and solutions will be found through timely communication.
'I will make Akash join the BSP movement and give him a chance to learn,' she said in a statement.
SP president Akhilesh Yadav and ally RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary are unlikely to participate in the Yatra due to "preoccupation" with their party programmes, their party leaders said.
The CM added the BJP has learnt its "lessons" and exuded confidence it will perform better in future polls.
26 candidates in Amethi fray take away 60,545 votes; the difference between the victorious Smriti Irani and Rahul Gandhi is 55,120 votes.
Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar, Rashtriya Lok Dal's Anil Kumar and two Bharatiya Janata Party leaders were sworn in on Tuesday as Yogi Adityanath expanded his council of ministers, weeks ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
Bowing to demands by several political parties, government on Tuesday said it has decided to include caste in census and the formality of endorsing it is expected at the next Cabinet meeting.
It is likely that small parties would be given very few seats to contest, but these parties believe that they would be able to swing the result in favour of bigger alliance partners by transferring their vote bank.
On March 28, the apex court had dismissed Ahmad's plea for protection and observed that the Uttar Pradesh state machinery would take care of his protection in case of a threat to his life.
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