There are no two views on which way the 'hawa' is blowing. It's Akhilesh Yadav -- with or without his father. Akhilesh, with or without the Congress Party.
For Adityanath, it's not just a chance to reaffirm his dominance in Uttar Pradesh, it's an opportunity to solidify his narrative as a vote-winner.
"The day news of the SP-BSP top leadership meeting came out, the BJP government used the CBI and raids were conducted in an old mining scam and the news of quizzing Akhilesh Yadav was deliberately spread. Is it not an action to defame the SP-BSP alliance?" Mayawati said.
Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati's fad for building memorials and parks with umpteen statues of Dalit icons and elephants, the party symbol, has a dark side too. Clearly, there appears to be a huge scam behind every dream project of the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister.
'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.'
'The people of Uttar Pradesh have already made up their mind to puncture the Samajwadi Party's cycle, kick away the Bahujan Samaj Party's elephant, and remove shadows of the already-vanished hand of the Congress.'
Mulayam said the new chief minister will be chosen by the Samajwadi Party.
Mayawati and Akhilesh, who contested the recent UP bypolls together, will campaign separately for their parties.
So who cost the SP more seats in UP? Hemantkumar Shivsaran does a deep dive to find out.
'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 last day of the campaigning in Lucknow brought all political rivals to converge on the streets of the state capital, throwing normal life out of gear.
According to sources, Congress managers are attempting to fix a meeting between Sonia Gandhi and Mayawati. Congress is hopeful that Mayawati will support any government other than BJP, even though the BSP supremo had lashed out at Congress throughout her campaigning.
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.
Mayawati's failure to contest the election as also her not organising large election rallies, as she once did, have led political pundits to conclude, rightly or wrongly, that she is 'out of the race', Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesri point out.
The Gomti Riverfront Development project, the Agra-Lucknow Expressway, the Jai Prakash Narayan International Centre and the efforts towards the beautification of Old Lucknow are some of Akhilesh Yadav's initiatives that are the subject of investigation.
No one will want President's rule imposed in the state and the BJP run the government through the remote control.
'Hindutva will not win any elections. Hindutva as a political plank never works.'
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav has written as many as 80 letter to the PM since he took as the reins of the state three years ago.
"The government is afraid of oath ceremony of a student leader and is stopping me at the airport to prevent me from visiting Allahabad," the SP chief claimed.
"In the entire elections, there were massive crowds in my rallies. I did not expect such a thing will happen. I hope the next government will work better than SP government," he said.
Taking a dig at BJP chief Amit Shah over his claim that his party will rule for the next 50 years, he said, "Forget 50 years, people will give their verdict in 50 weeks."
UP CM Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle Shivpal Yadav fired barbs at each other at an event to celebrate the SP's silver jubilee, barely two days after putting up a united show.
The birth anniversary of Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, whose political influence has surged with the passage of time, on Monday was marked by bitter trading of charges between the ruling BJP and opposition parties as they fought for his legacy.
The Election Commission has rubbished any allegations of misuse of the EVMs.
In his second term in office, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has retained 34 portfolios.
A myth was nurtured for nearly three decades that any chief minister of Uttar Pradesh who visited Noida in Gautam Buddh Nagar district was doomed to go out of power.
On possible alliances for the upcoming state polls, the SP president said, "Doors of our party are open for all small parties. Many smaller parties are already with us. More will come with us."
The top court had on May 7 held that former chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh cannot retain government accommodation after demitting office.
Janata Dal-Secular's H D Kumaraswamy on Wednesday took the oath of office at a mega-gathering, attended by Congress president Rahul Gandhi, his mother Sonia and strong regional leaders like Mamata Banerjee, Mayawati and Sharad Pawar. The event was planned in such a way that it would serve as a giant display of opposition unity against the Bharatiya Janata Party. Is the BJP watching?
Another UP MLA came out in support of Sadhana Singh, saying there was nothing wrong in her remarks.
Akhilesh Yadav doesn't need Bollywood stars to power his campaign for the UP election when he has a charming campaigner like his missus.
Amid outrage over the gang rape and murder of two sisters in Uttar Pradesh's Badaun district, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Friday assured setting up of a special fast track court to handle the incident.
SP chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said Akhilesh will not participate in the yatra, nor will any other leader from the party.
'They (BJP) can claim of winning even 82 seats, despite the fact that Uttar Pradesh has only 80 seats'
Akhilesh Yadav begins his campaign for next assembly election in Uttar Pradesh.
'His way of communication is different than the first yatra.' 'Maybe his anger and frustration stems from the fact that no one is asking hard questions to the government and he is trying to do that.'
Mayawati charged that the communal atmosphere in the state had been spoilt because of an understanding between the SP and the BJP.
The BJP, which contested more seats this time than in 2019 but is likely to fall short of the magic figure of 272, garnered 36.91 per cent of the total votes polled, a drop of around 0.39 percentage points as of 6.15 pm.
A deadly terror attack targeting tourists in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam on Tuesday drew strong condemnation and outrage. 26 people, including two foreigners and two locals, were killed in the attack, which is the deadliest in the Valley since the Pulwama strike in 2019. Prime Minister Narendra Modi asserted that the perpetrators will not be spared and their evil agenda will never succeed. Opposition leaders demanded accountability, claiming the government's claims of normalcy in Kashmir have fallen flat.
The coming together of SP and BSP leaders on one platform is being seen as the emergence of a new phase of politics in the state after a dismal show of all anti-BJP parties in the 2014 Lok Sabha and 2017 assembly polls.
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