The government also ruled out having a re-look at the present reservation system.
Congress worker 'Swatantra' Mishra with a 'Aati Kya Khandala' parody for the campaign trail.
When the governor and chief justice objected to his choice, the UP chief minister just changed the law.
Cutting across party lines, members in Lok Sabha highlighted the cases of atrocities being committed on Dalits in various parts of the country and demanded steps to prevent them.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's debacle at this week's bypoll in Uttar Pradesh has once again prompted Union Minister Maneka Gandhi to bat for her son Varun, the party member of Parliament from Sultanpur, who was sidelined by party president Amit Shah soon after the latter rode on to the party's helm of affairs.
But the police campaign aimed at ensuring safety of women, especially young girls, was reportedly marked by some stray cases of harassment of innocent youths amid concerns that it could spawn moral policing.
Out of the 403 seats up for grabs, the BSP had prepared a final list comprising 97 Muslim candidates (12 more than 2012), 87 Dalits and 106 other backwards castes, besides earmarking 113 seats for upper castes -- Brahmins 66, Kshatriyas 36 and others 11.
The rallies will be used to drill home the message of the "political will" that Modi government has shown to launch 'surgical strikes' against Pakistan-based terrorists.
Tata Motors sells Indica and Indigo cars, pick-up trucks and long-haul high capacity trucks that are exported to SA through its subsidiary Tata South Africa.
Controversy shrouds the expansion of the Akhilesh Yadav ministry on Monday with a social activist throwing a spanner by challenging before Governor Ram Naik the possible re-entry of tainted former Mines Minister Gayatri Prajapati.
Its current majority of 22,078 votes for the purpose of the presidential elections is considered thin, particularly when BJP might not be able to predict voting behaviour of its allies like Shiv Sena.
Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Legislative Assembly Sangeet Som, against whom an arrest warrant has been issued in connection with the Muzaffarnagar riots, on Wednesday said he was ready for an arrest and demanded an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the entire issue.
But he doesn't want to shut the door completely on the Yadav family as that could create problems for him in 2019.
2,470 BJP workers from across the country would spend a year visiting polling booths, while another 1,441 workers would spend six months and 378,000 workers will spend 15 days to reach out to party cadres and ensure better polling management in areas outside their home districts.
Akhilesh said people feel that they have been misled (by the BJP) for forming the government.
The arms training camp of Bajrang Dal has triggered a war of words among political parties in Uttar Pradesh with Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati expressing concern over Governor Ram Naik's support to the "illegal exercise" and Samajwadi Party accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party of whipping up communal frezy with an eye on state assembly polls.
Modi talks of development but he is harming them," the Congress vice president adding that projects that could have changed the lives of people.
Imagine a Dalit naari single-handedly fighting Moolahyumm Singh, the BJP star brigade and the Congress party! Today, Mayawati is the darling behenji of the masses.
The Enforcement Directorate had last week arrested Chhagan Bhujbal's associate and chartered accountant Sunil Naik in connection with the case.
The Congress, which wanted to contest as many as 121 seats, has reportedly now settled for 105 seats.
Naidu was in Faizabad to lead a march to mobilise public opinion on national security, which he alleged was threatened by incidents of terrorism in different parts of the country.
'It is for the first time that Modi has chosen someone as CM who happens to be a mass leader, a polarising figure, a vote catcher, a powerful orator and a Hindu mascot all at once -- qualities usually associated with Modi,' points out Rajeev Sharma.
Adityanath will be the 21st UP chief minister and the fourth from the BJP.
In his quest to get Muslim votes, Rahul campaigned in the narrow bylanes of this historic township that accorded him a tumultuous welcome.
Ajit Shukla, an ex-IITian who is spearheading a new political party in Uttar Pradesh led by former IITians -- the Bharat Punarnirman Dal.
Mahindra & Mahindra is planning to invest Rs 1,000 crore on capacity expansion in the next three years, and was also planning to set up assembly units in Russia and Malaysia, according to Pawan Goenka, president (automotive sector) of M&M.
Have Muslim women taken to the BJP under Modi even while their menfolk cling to 'secular' politics, asks Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
'It will be a grand alliance where they could get the Muslims, Dalits and Yadavs in one camp and pose a serious challenge to whatever the BJP might conjure up in the run-up to the 2019 election.'
Charles 'Biharilal' Thomson, an Australian who speaks fluent Hindi, on how India has bewitched him.
The rejig may take place before the assembly election results for Assam, Kerala, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
Will Amar Singh be the go-between between the SP and Congress, asks Aditi Phadnis.
'They must take the bull of conservatism within their own ranks by its horns as much as they need to speak out against the fallacies of the non-Hindutva (or 'Muslim-friendly') political forces as well,' argues Mohammad Sajjad.
"The situation has already improved in Gorakhpur and it would soon improve in the state as well," he said.
While the widespread feeling is that employment growth has been sluggish, some argue that, since sabka vikas slogan will most probably not deliver, Mr Modi and the BJP are going in for an unambiguous strategy of Hindu consolidation, says Subir Roy.
Shivpal loyalists have been denied tickets.
Amid a controversy over the recent the JNU row, the BJP said freedom of expression does not give a right to call for the country's destruction.
'It is very hard to get the police to file a report against someone from an upper caste.' 'Things are so bad that sometimes we have to sit on a dharna with the body of a Dalit victim to get the police to file a complaint.'
'Akhilesh's plan is simple.' 'He wants to lead the party on the strength of the infrastructural development his government has done, capitalise on the massive sympathy wave of young people in the state who dream of doing what he has managed to do -- defy a feudal, greying orthodoxy that occupies and sits on posts and positions never to leave.'
The 90-minute meeting is being seen as an attempt at reconciliation between Shivpal, a Cabinet minister, and Akhilesh after intervention of the latter's father Mulayam.
It is possibly the first time that a regional party with not even enough numbers to move a no-trust motion has taken the lead, and others are following it. The hints of a no-trust move first came from the YSR Congress, and the ruling TDP could not have stayed on together when the question is another version of 'Telugu atma gouravam' - an issue that fired its founder N T Rama Rao in the 1980s, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
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