'Nitish may take such a decision because he was the first person who was with the INDIA front.' 'He went back only because he did not get proper encouragement from the Congress.' 'Nitish will take a decision provided there is a strong alternative.' 'If he feels ours is a weak coalition, he will not come.' 'Then, this government will continue for five years.'
'Commentators have said that dealing with allies as equals will make Modi more sensitive.' 'Remember that the people Modi is dealing with are equally autocratic in their own lairs.' 'Further, Modi always has handy the threat of dissolving Parliament and calling for fresh polls.' 'Most of his own party, and certainly his allies and opponents having blown their budgets of efforts and resources in the just concluded elections, have no stomach for this.' 'They are all greatly looking forward to the loaves and fishes of office on offer.' 'That gives Modi an unbeatable advantage in any push-comes-to-shove situation,' explains Shreekant Sambrani.
SP and SBSP leaders had shared the dais in Mau on Wednesday and announced that they would together trounce the BJP in the 2022 elections.
A meeting of Opposition parties, organised by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, will be held in Patna on June 23, his deputy Tejashwi Yadav said on Wednesday.
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.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav made a surprise visit to Congress President Sonia Gandhi's Lok Sabha constituency of Rae Bareli on Wednesday where, among other things, he ordered action against two district officials for laxity in service.
Hits street with demonstrations across 75 UP districts
Can you recognise the symbols of parties trying their luck in the five poll-bound states?
According to insiders, their lack of enthusiasm is showing on the ground. There is nothing to suggest that their enthusiasm will return in the final four phases of polling, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Dharmendra Pratap Singh is 8 feet, 1 inch tall.
Reflecting the growing bonhomie between the two parties, Congress has decided not to field any candidate against Uttar Pradesh Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple Yadav, the Samajwadi Party candidate in the Kannauj Lok Sabha by-election.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati and other senior politicians on Sunday cast their votes in the third phase of Uttar Pradesh elections and claimed that their parties will form the next government.
'The Constitution of India defeated the BJP.'
The Vishwaguru who addressed the maximum rallies and boasted of being blessed with divine energy, who promised guarantees in his own name, turned out finally not invincible, points out Jyoti Punwani.
Our work in last five years and the problems people are facing due to demonetisation will lead us to victory, he said.
Five BJP MLAs and Apna Dal (Sonelal) legislator Amar Singh Chaudhary also joined the SP in the presence of Akhilesh Yadav.
Mulayam Singh and Mayawati fell out after their ruling coalition in Uttar Pradesh crashed in 1995, two years after they came together along with smaller parties to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party out of power.
The Congress also asserted that the opposition INDIA bloc had been formed for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections at the national level and was not state specific.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday kept the bulk of ministries, including the key Home and Finance, with him.
Sources said Modi also called up various leaders, including Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, Dravida Munnetra Kazagham's M K Stalin and Shiromani Akali Dal leader Parkash Singh Badal.
In outrageous remarks, Public Works Department Minister Shivpal Singh Yadav, uncle of the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, told officials that they can steal a little of public money if they work hard but they should not behave like dacoits.
In outrageous remarks, Public Works Department Minister Shivpal Singh Yadav, uncle of the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, told officials that they can steal a little of public money if they work hard but they should not behave like dacoits.
With his "extravagant" birthday celebrations drawing flak and questions being raised on the source of funds, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav on Sunday asserted that state money was not spent on the celebrations and dubbed those making it an issue as "ignorant".
Yogi Adityanath, who has been declared BJP candidate from Gorakhpur will be the second leader to contest from the district as a chief minister after Tribhuvan Narayan Singh, who lost in 1971.
The Bahujan Samaj Party has resisted giving up the bungalow on 13-A, Mall Avenue, saying that it had been converted into a memorial to Kanshi Ram in 2011, and the BSP leader occupied just a small portion of it.
The EC, which reserved its order on the dispute over 'cycle' symbol, has kept both sides guessing with leaders of warring camps exploring various scenarios as little time is left for process of filing nominations to start for the first phase of the staggered polls in Uttar Pradesh.
Samajwadi Party spokesman Mohan Singh had issued a statement contradicting Akhilesh Yadav's stand on the proposed induction of mafia don turned politician D P Yadav into the party. Sharat Pradhan reports.
Several luminaries of Indian politics are descending in Lucknow to attend the historic swearing-in ceremony of 38-year-old Akhilesh Yadav as the youngest ever chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, on Thursday.
In the backdrop of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam withdrawing support to United Progressive Alliance, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party state president Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday said his party's support to the UPA would continue and final decision would be taken by SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav.
The states and union territories where the elections are being held in this phase are Assam (4), Bihar (5), Chhattisgarh (7), Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (2), Goa (2), Gujarat (25), Karnataka (14), Maharashtra (11), Madhya Pradesh (8), Uttar Pradesh (10) and West Bengal (4). The BJP has bagged the Surat seat unopposed.
Having completed a grueling election campaign across Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav is now back in Lucknow eagerly awaiting the verdict of the people. In an exclusive interview with rediff.com's Sharat Pradhan, he shares his strategy and outlines the factors that went in favour of his party in this election
He said the BJP is leaving a "culture", which may be used against it in the future.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday took a potshot at Bharatiya Janata Party for raising the issue of 'love jihad'(affairs involving Muslim boys and Hindu girls) by suggesting that its MP Hema Malini had no qualms about acting in movies which showed such relationships.
The alliance leaders are getting together for the third round of the brainstorming session in Mumbai, after Patna and Bengaluru, to chalk out their common campaign strategy to take on the NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra appears to have shed the maximum sweat among top leaders for over the last 45 days in the seven-phase Uttar Pradesh assembly elections campaign.
Ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday launched a specially made 'Samajwadi perfume,' hoping to spread the 'scent of socialism' in the state.
Differences in Samajwadi Party over induction of controversial politician D P Yadav into the party on Thursday burst into the open with the SP sacking senior leader Mohan Singh from the post of its national spokesman.
'They (BJP) can claim of winning even 82 seats, despite the fact that Uttar Pradesh has only 80 seats'