The past two years have been all about navigating the choppy waters of family connections, complicated intrigue and courts of appeal that have a tendency to cross each other out
The hi-tech customised rath of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday broke down after barely covering a kilometre, forcing him to switch to his official vehicle to continue his state-wide tour.
Dinesh Pratap Singh, who was elected to the state legislative council for the second time in 2016 and left the Congress last year, is pitted against UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on a seat held by her since 2004.
Attacking the central government, he said it has made everybody stand in queue and wondered if this was the 'achche din' for which people had voted for Narendra Modi. "It has harmed the economy," he said.
Electioneering ended in Madhya Pradesh at 6 pm except in Naxalites-hit districts of Balaghat, Mandla and Dindori, where campaigning drew to a close early at 3 pm.
The SP president and the RLD chief announced the tie-up on social media for the general elections later this year.
Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav's son Akhilesh said he would give credit to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for Raj Babbar's landslide victory in the recent Lok Sabha by-poll at Firozabad.
'Amar Singh witnessed some of the major political developments from close quarters'
Swara Bhasker's wedding reception in Delhi did not have the regular Bollywood faces.
Banda chief judicial magistrate Bhagwan Das Gupta appointed Garima Singh, additional chief judicial magistrate (MP-MLA Court Banda) as the investigating officer in the case, the official said.
With the state going to polls soon, Akhilesh Yadav needs to step out of his father's shadow and come into his own as the state's CM.
To repeated questions, the SP chief asserted that the Congress was 'very much in the alliance'.
His son and party chief Akhilesh Yadav lit the funeral pyre. The former Uttar Pradesh CM had died aged 82 at a private hospital in Haryana's Gurugram on Monday.
This is dil ka alliance, mil ke jeetenge (It is an alliance of heart, we will win together)... says Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi while addressing a joint press conference with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was an experienced leader and it would be great if a proposal came to make him the convenor of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), his deputy Tejashwi Yadav said on Wednesday.
Facing strident demands for the arrest of Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya booked in the DSP murder case, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday promised to take action against those found guilty.
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.
Amar Singh built an extensive network for the party, and was often spotted with celebrities, from the Bachchans to Anil Ambani to Subrata Roy.
Those whose cover has been reduced include Samajwadi Party chief and former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, leaders Shivpal Yadav and Azam Khan, Dimple Yadav and Ram Gopal Yadav, and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati.
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.
Gleaning lessons from Amit Shah's compendium of Chanakya-isms, the Samajwadi Party is keeping its operations low-key and working on an inclusive strategy.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and demanded smooth transfer of funds for Central schemes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act and asked for help in holding the forthcoming Kumbh festival, cleaning of the Ganga and coal supply to the state.
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the alleged disproportionate assets of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, would continue.
He also claimed that corrupt persons and officials had joined hands with the government during the previous regime when Akhilesh was the chief minister and the same thing was happening in the present dispensation.
The police on Wednesday detained the father and uncle of the accused. The other accused, Sajid's brother Javed, is absconding, the police said.
The SP chief said they will now "consult" the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Gondwana Gantantra Party for the Madhya Pradesh polls.
Even as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has been busy fighting his father and Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav to take control of the party, his step-brother Prateek Yadav has kept himself away from the hullaballoo and has been busy building his biceps.
Earlier on Wednesday, the district court ruled that a priest can perform prayers before the idols in a cellar of the Gyanvapi Masjid, a significant development in the legal battle over the mosque adjacent to the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday said the decision to join the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre in the changed political scenario would be taken by Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav was in his elements once again on Monday when he chose to run down ministers in his son Akhilesh Yadav's government at a public rally in Mau.
Two weeks before the Samajwadi Party's awesome victory in the UP assembly election, Akhilesh Yadav spelled out his priorities in an exclusive interview to Rediff.com
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple is likely to try her luck at the hustings once again. Her name was already being projected as the Samajwadi Party frontrunner for the forthcoming by-election for the Kannauj Lok Sabh seat, vacated by none other than her husband after he became UP chief minister.
"Mulayam Singh is the first choice of party legislators, members of Parliament and senior party office bearers. He has experience of running the government and he will be the CM, if party is voted to power", Akhilesh said in reply to a question
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and MP Ramgopal Yadav accompanied 44-year-old Dimple during the filing of nomination papers at the District Magistrate's office in Mainpuri.
The June 23 meeting of opposition parties, called by Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar, will see anti-BJP players chalk out a strategy for the Lok Sabha polls.
The group led by Akhilesh Yadav is the Samajwadi Party and is entitled to use its name and reserved symbol bicycle, the three-member Election Commission headed by Nasim Zaidi said in its order.
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.
Akhilesh said people feel that they have been misled (by the BJP) for forming the government.
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.
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