The choice of candidates for 175 seats by Shivpal has apparently not gone down well with his defiant nephew Akhilesh who, according to party insiders, is understood to have prepared his own list of preferred candidates for all the 403 UP assembly seats and sent it to his father and party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Among the keenly watched contests are those involving former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (Kannauj, UP) and Union ministers Giriraj Singh (Begusarai, Bihar), Nityanand Rai (Ujiarpur, Bihar) and Raosaheb Danve (Jalna, Maharashtra).
India's youngest chief minister is trapped under layers of influences and is proving ineffectual, but author finds him impossible not to like during an unusually personal interview.
Mayawati and Akhilesh, who contested the recent UP bypolls together, will campaign separately for their parties.
In a scathing attack on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, Congress leader and Union Minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday accused him of being "masterly inactive" over Muzaffarnagar riots and adopting a "cynical strategy" of believing that it would divide voters.
Maurya resigned as the party's national general secretary on February 13, accusing the leadership of discriminating against him and not defending him over his controversial statements on the Ramcharitmanas and the Ayodhya temple consecration ceremony.
Mulayam accused Akhilesh of having a negative approach towards Muslims.
Amid the raging feud in Mulayam Singh Yadav's family, Samajwadi Party leader Ramgopal Yadav on Thursday said the leadership had committed a "mistake" by removing Akhilesh Yadav as party's UP president and that "differences" had arisen due to some "misunderstanding".
'Rahul Gandhi is going to turn 54 and in India political leaders peak when they are around 60.' 'This 'bhai-behen ki jodi' has done a wonderful job for the Congress.' 'Priyanka Gandhi was a very effective campaigner.'
Several opposition parties have claimed that the mandate of 2024 Lok Sabha elections was against the ruling haratiya Janata Party, even though it was able to form the government with support of other parties.
Singh, who was accused by the Akhilesh camp of trying to destroy the party, thanked SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, and his brother Shivpal Yadav, the state party chief, for standing by him and described Mulayam as the 'core' and 'father' of the Samajwadi Party.
Few in Varanasi expect the result to be different from 2014 and 2019. The only point of interest is whether Narendra Modi will increase his winning margin against his rivals.
'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,".'
Criticising the lack of efforts by the Uttar Pradesh administration to curb rising number of rape cases, the National Commission for Women on Monday demanded the resignation of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
Apparently hinting at Amar Singh, UP CM says 'we will not let outsiders drive a wedge between us'.
"I came in between" Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Tuesday, taking a dig at the leaders of the Congress and the Samajwadi Party who had formed a coalition to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have got a tough fight in Varanasi had Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contested against him as Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) candidate, feel party workers from the temple town.
This dictatorial attitude with the help of police will not be tolerated, Yadav said.
Khan, who is currently lodged in Sitapur jail, has been replaced by Mohibullah Nadvi, a cleric of a mosque located on Delhi's Parliament Street.
The 266-page report, submitted by the PWD to Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday, extrapolates that most of the disfigurement in the state property was caused to tiles, sanitary and electrical equipment fitted in the house.
"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.
Prolonged parleys with different power centers led to several hiccups before Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav could induct four new faces in his team in Lucknow on Thursday. The total tally of council of ministers is now 60.
When the governor and chief justice objected to his choice, the UP chief minister just changed the law.
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.
Informing about his decision, Maurya said in a tweet in Hindi, 'Due to the attitude of gross neglect towards Dalits, backwards, farmers, unemployed youth and small and medium-sized traders, I am resigning from the council of ministers of Yogi (Adityanath) of UP.'
On the last day of Samajwadi Party's statewide agitation against the Mayawati government, party state president Akhilesh Yadav was arrested on Wednesday at the Amausi airport as soon as he landed in Lucknow from New Delhi.
Two empty chairs -- one each for jailed Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal former and former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren -- were kept on stage as the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) organised a mega rally in Ranchi on Ranchi.
KC Venugopal mentioned that the Congress's goal is to diminish the BJP's representation in Uttar Pradesh by securing half of the seats in the state.
Leaders of several Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) parties met on Saturday to take stock of the opposition's preparations leading up to the June 4 counting of votes polled in the Lok Sabha elections, and claimed they will get more than 295 seats, enough for them to form the next government.
Rashtriya Lok Dal president Jayant Chaudhary on Friday said the Centre won his heart with the announcement of Bharat Ratna to former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh. 'Dil Jeet Liya,' he posted on X.
Akhilesh was referring to the advertisement in which Bachchan is seen inviting tourists to visit the Wild Ass Sanctuary located in Little Rann of Kutch in the state.
With Atishi at the helm it will not be easy for the BJP to continue using the LG's office and the bureaucracy as political instruments to hinder governance and thereby provoke the electorate's ire against the AAP, expects Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
