This comes a day after the Uttar Pradesh government suspended six officials of civic agencies for alleged gross negligence following the road cave-ins and waterlogging at several sections of the newly-built Ram Path.
Polling for the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections for 94 seats will take place today, covering 11 States and Union Territory.
Majority of these constituencies are in Uttar Pradesh and the party that is on the third slot even as the counting is still underway on several seats is the Bahujan Samaj Party, a party neither with the National Democratic Alliance nor the opposition INDIA bloc.
Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray on Friday said he will back any candidate announced by the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar as Maha Vikas Aghadi's chief ministerial face.
Congress leaders Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi are likely to contest the Lok Sabha election from Rae Bareli and Amethi seats, respectively, sources said on Thursday.
Scenes from the election campaign in New Delhi, Mainpuri, Bardhaman, Srinagar, Etah, Mumbai and Puri.
The SP president and the RLD chief announced the tie-up on social media for the general elections later this year.
Newly elected Samajwadi Party MP RK Chaudhary, one of the founders of the Bahujan Samaj Party, has claimed BSP chief Mayawati has been ignoring the Bahujan movement which has led to her party's rout in these Lok Sabha polls.
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will move the motion today in the Lok Sabha to choose Om Birla as the Speaker of the lower house amid a tussle for the post with the opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA).
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera called the order "state-sponsored bigotry".
'The inauguration of the Ram temple was the pinnacle of the BJP's religious politics.' 'Politics is dynamic. What goes up has to come down.'
The Uttar Pradesh police on Thursday said they have arrested six sevadars (volunteers), including two women, of the organising committee in connection with the Hathras stampede that killed 121 people.
Ansari's brother Afzal said they do not trust either the postmortem or the viscera reports.
Political observers lauded the SP's choices in fielding several non-Yadav and Scheduled Caste candidates, the party's alliance with the Congress, and Rahul Gandhi's campaign around the danger to the Constitution if the BJP won a big majority.
What some of our leaders were up to this week.
Campaigning continues for the final three phases of the Lok Sabha election.
'There was a strong undercurrent of deprivation, and also frustration against misuse of power and authority.' 'This election was an opportunity for the manifestation of this discontentment.'
'Even if we have laws in place, which we must, we need a societal change.' 'Rather than telling our daughters that, "Listen, leave your house at so and so time, come back by so and so time," we must tell the men and boys that "Whatever point of time you encounter a woman in public space or wherever, you treat her with respect, dignity, and as an equal participant in these public spaces".'
Questioning the Congress's stand on caste census, the BJP leader made certain remarks on Gandhi's caste that triggered the uproar and had Congress members trooping into the well of the Lok Sabha. "Anurag Thakur insulted me and I don't want any apology from him. Abuse or insult me as hard as you can but don't forget we will pass the caste census in this Parliament for sure," the Leader of the Opposition said.
The response was tepid in other parts of the country even as several INDIA bloc parties as well as other non-BJP outfits extended their support to the bandh.
From the word go, Bihar growled its needs out when an MP from the state said aloud: "Give something for Bihar also, Madam." Every time the Budget mentioned cities and towns in Andhra Pradesh, "Kursi Bachao" was the call from Congress MPs.
Campaigning for May 13 elections in 96 Lok Sabha constituencies across 10 states and Union territories including all seats in Andhra Pradesh, where assembly elections are also being held concurrently, and Telangana concluded on Saturday evening.
The chief minister said the Congress-Samajwadi Party alliance will win an overwhelming majority in the assembly polls and get more than 300 seats in the 403-member House.
An Uttar Pradesh government spokesperson said a formal order for all eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route in the state was likely to be issued soon.
He also pointed out the high sums earned by the coaching centres leading to the commercialisation of education.
Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi met Speaker Om Birla on Thursday and voiced his displeasure over the reference to Emergency made by the chair, saying it was 'clearly political' and could have been avoided.
A senior SP leader requesting anonymity said that the party chief had called a meeting to brief the MLAs about the voting process of the Rajya Sabha elections.
The bill to amend the law governing Waqf boards proposes far-reaching changes in the Wakf Act, 1995, including ensuring the representation of Muslim women and non-Muslims in such bodies.
The BJP, which has allied with a few smaller parties, has sought to upend the state's conventional politics, which has so far been indifferent to Hindutva politics, by taking the ruling DMK head-on for its alleged insult of Sanatan Dharma besides involvement in corruption.
The row over Bharatiya Janata Party MP Anurag Thakur's remarks in Lok Sabha escalated on Wednesday with the Congress submitting a notice to move a privilege motion against Prime Minister Narendra Modi for posting on 'X' a video that allegedly also contained expunged portions of Thakur's speech.
The warming up of ties became apparent after the Centre announced the country's highest civilian honour Bharat Ratna to his grandfather and former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh.
'Just today a shopkeeper I went to was saying how bad business is. He must have been a BJP supporter.' 'He finally said, "It's a good thing there's an NDA government, not a BJP government, 'they' had become too big for their boots,".'
The case pertains to the issuance of mining leases in alleged violation of e-tendering process. The Allahabad High Court had ordered the probe.
'Mayawatiji no more controls the bahujan vote in UP.' 'In this election more than 40 per cent of the BSP's core voters blessed the SP without the SP even asking for it.'
Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties on Saturday announced that they will participate in the exit poll debates on television on Saturday evening after the grouping's top leaders met and deliberated on the issue at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's residence.
The Opposition on Tuesday termed the Union Budget as a 'kursi bachao budget' driven by political compulsions and claimed that it ignored opposition-ruled states in a bid to 'appease' Bharatiya Janata Party's allies.
Ganguly joined the BJP in New Delhi at the party headquarters in the presence of several other party leaders, including its national media department in-charge Anil Baluni.
Akhilesh Yadav replaced his nephew Tej Pratap Yadav and decided to contest the Kannauj seat himself.
The BJP had registered a one-sided victory on all the 17 SC-reserved seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. But in 2019, out of these 17 seats, it lost Nagina and Lalganj seats to the Bahujan Samaj Party.
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