Mayawati made it amply clear that her party will not enter into any alliance with the Congress.
Sources in the Congress Party have said that the Rashtriya Lok Dal leader is likely to be given the civil aviation portfolio and will contest 45 to 50 seats in western UP. Renu Mittal reports.
Party chief Chaudhary Ajit Singh and Jayant Chaudhary will decide on the number of seats the party will contest and the matter may be discussed during a meeting in the next few days
Addressing a joint press conference after a meeting of 26 opposition parties in Bengaluru, Kharge said, "This was a very important meeting to save democracy and the Constitution in the interest of the people of the country."
Ajit Singh represented a bridge between a constituency that represented a more traditional era in politics and a modern, forward-looking, India, remembers Aditi Phadnis.
Sibal, a prominent Opposition voice and a former Congress leader, also said that instead of a common minimum programme, the Opposition parties should talk about a 'new vision for India'.
A win for SP could provide some consolation for Akhilesh Yadav after the defeat in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections early this year and the loss of Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha seats to the BJP in June bypolls.
As many as 10 ministers in the Yogi Adityanath government failed to win their seats in the 2022 assembly elections, despite the BJP registering an impressive victory.
The Bharatiya Janata Party faces an uphill task of repeating its performance of the last assembly election of winning 53 out of 58 constituencies in western Uttar Pradesh where polling will be held in the first phase on February 10.
Sources said the opposition parties would look to avoid the prickly leadership question as of now and emphasise on building a common ground.
As many as 623 candidates, including 73 women are in the fray in the first phase and around 2.28 core voters, including 1.24 crore men and 1.04 crore women are eligible to caste their francise, election officials said.
So who cost the SP more seats in UP? Hemantkumar Shivsaran does a deep dive to find out.
While the RLD has fought the just-concluded polls in tie up with the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party, the office-bearers of the BKU, which was part of the anti-farm laws protest against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre, insists it is an 'apolitical' group.
Chaudhary met Azam Khan's wife Tazeen Fatma and his son Abdullah Azam at their home in Rampur.
Jayant Chaudhary has plenty of time to make his own mistakes. But this election is a crucial test of his leadership.
A basic outline and roadmap for Opposition unity are likely to be deliberated upon with the contentious issue of seat sharing and leadership questions to be avoided for now.
Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav on Monday alleged that the police and administration are preventing people from casting votes in Mainpuri parliamentary and Rampur Assembly constituency in the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh.
Rampur Sadar and Khatauli in Uttar Pradesh, Padampur in Odisha, Sardarshahar in Rajasthan, Kurhani in Bihar and Bhanupratappur in Chhattisgarh are the assembly seats where the bypolls are being held.
Accompanied by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Chaudhary reached Uttar Pradesh assembly premises in the morning to file his nomination.
The bypolls were conducted for two Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, one each in Meghalaya and Odisha and the Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency in Punjab.
Pilot had claimed that the Ashok Gehlot government was in minority and more than 30 Congress and some independent legislators have pledged support to him.
Bharatiya Janata Party MP Varun Gandhi on Sunday described farmers, who have been protesting against three farm laws, as 'our own flesh and blood' and suggested that the government should re-engage with them in reaching common ground.
These meetings with Pawar has fuelled speculations about the possibility of opposition parties coming together to form a third front against the Bharatiya Janata Party.
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had on Thursday announced an alliance with his uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav's PSPL after a meeting between them.
According to the results announced on Thursday, 25 Samajwadi Party candidates were defeated by less than 5,000 votes while a similar fate awaited three nominees of the Rashtriya Lok Dal.
However, the RLD leader gave a terse response. 'Invite those +700 farmer families which you have destroyed, not me,' he tweeted in Hindi.
The announcement put an end to speculation that Sonia Gandhi may not contest in the upcoming polls due to health reasons and the party's newly appointed general secretary in-charge (East UP) Priyanka Gandhi Vadra may be fielded from her constituency.
The Uttar Pradesh government has accorded 'Y' category security to Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) president Om Prakash Rajbhar, an alliance partner of the Samajwadi Party, officials said on Friday.
Addressing a virtual rally for three western UP districts -- Bijnor, Moradabad and Amroha -- PM Modi urged farmers to ask those trying to 'mislead' them how much electricity was given to the villages in their area when they were in power.
In his maiden foray in the state election, Yadav won from the Karhal assembly seat by a margin of 67,504 votes.
Opposition presidential candidate Yashwant Sinha on Monday filed his nomination papers for the July 18 election, with a host of leaders including Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Akhilesh Yadav and Farooq Abdullah accompanying him.
Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi held a virtual meeting on Friday evening with leaders of 19 Opposition parties, including the chief ministers of some Opposition-ruled states, amid efforts to boost Opposition unity and evolve a common strategy against the National Democratic Alliance government.
The Rashtriya Lok Dal has chosen educated candidates hailing from the constituency and with no criminal background, while partner the Samajwadi Party picked them on their 'winnability' factor as the alliance announced the first list of nominees for the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
Some of the MLAs seen in the video are Indraraj Gurjar, Mukesh Bhakar, Harish Meena.
Yadav was dismissed in 2017 after he posted a video online complaining about the food served to the troops.
While the Samajwadi Party largely banks on its Muslim-Yadav support base, the Bharatiya Janata Party is trying to counter it with the Modi-Yogi combo in the state assembly polls.
Sibal, whose exit from the Congress is another jolt for the electorally battered party, went to the Uttar Pradesh assembly premises to file his papers with SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, Ram Gopal Yadav and other senior leaders.
SP leader Akhilesh Yadav has successfully poached a number of OBC leaders from the ruling party, including Swami Prasad Maurya, in his efforts to broaden his party's social base beyond the traditional Muslim and Yadav votebank to take it on this time round.
The ceremony on Friday will be attended by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and chief ministers of Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states.
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