A day after OBC leader Swami Prasad Maurya resigned from the Uttar Pradesh cabinet citing apathy towards the backward classes, Dara Singh Chauhan too resigned as minister in the Yogi Adityanath government.
The Congress on Monday nominated Bharatiya Janata Party turncoat Ashish Shukla against the saffron party's nominee, Sanjay Sinh, from the high-profile Amethi assembly seat in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
Taking a 180 degree turn from his previous stance of not approving the Congress and Samajwadi Party's alliance stitched together by his son Akhilesh, Mulayam on Thursday announced that he would campaign for his son, saying, "He is my son after all."
Azam Khan is currently a member of Parliament from Rampur Lok Sabha.
'The tragedy with Indian Muslims is that they do politics from the heart, not from the head.'
'His biggest contribution as defence minister was to change the rules of bringing martyred soldiers' bodies home.'
A bench of justices KM Joseph and BV Nagarathna asked senior advocate Vivek Tankha and advocate Sumeer Sodhi to serve the copy of the petition to the standing counsel of Uttar Pradesh government and posted the matter for further hearing on April 5.
BJP sources suggest that the upcoming elections will likely revolve around the renewed enthusiasm for the temple unless another theme with religious and nationalist undertones emerges.
Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav's demise might not have any direct political impact on the party, but its president Akhilesh Yadav will now have to work without his 'shield and shadow'.
'Episodes of targeted attacks on Muslims established that for a section of people and, sadly, even officials of the State, the election results conveyed no lessons.' 'Opposition parties must not be hesitant in speaking out whenever the mob with tacit State support targets Muslims,' asserts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times.
"If a film Kashmir Files is made, then at least, there should also be film 'Lakhimpur Files', where farmers were crushed under the wheels of a jeep," the SP president told journalists in Sitapur district on Wednesday when asked for his opinion on the Bollywood movie.
Voting began on Thursday in the by-election to seven assembly constituencies in six states -- a contest symbolic of the fierce turf war between the Bharatiya Janata Party and regional parties.
As Uttar Pradesh gears up for assembly elections early next year, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will address a public rally on October 10 in Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a party spokesperson said.
According to the poll panel, election campaign can now be conducted between 6 am and 10 pm instead of earlier 8 am to 8 pm.
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.
Voting is underway in three Lok Sabha and 33 assembly seats across 10 states where by-elections are being held on Saturday.
Counting for assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur was held on Thursday. Here's how the big names fared.
Leaders of several like-minded opposition parties are likely to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Karnataka chief minister-designate Siddaramaiah and deputy chief minister D K Shivakumar on Saturday in Bengaluru.
Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and his chief minister son Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday jointly sounded the party's bugle for 2014 Lok Sabha elections from this eastern Uttar Pradesh hub, ill-famed as a home and haven for several terrorists.
Yadav fought hard, but his party was well behind the BJP.
Gandhi had on Saturday said that the Congress reached out to the BSP leader, offering her the chief minister's post for contesting the assembly polls together, but she did not respond.
Modi said the state election results "give a glimpse" of the outcome of the general elections of 2024.
The TDP and JD-U will have a lot to answer inside Parliament, day after day, session after session, notes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Counting of votes for the bypolls in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand will be taken up on Sunday.
Ahead of the last Assembly polls, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had promised to implement a farm loan waiver scheme in the state if the party came to power.
Officials said most of the preparations are complete and the counting will start at 8 am on Saturday.
The broad patterns tell us that to sweep UP, the BJP has to retain its voteshares of the past three elections. But to merely win it, the party can do so while losing some voteshare, and perhaps up to as much as 10 per cent, observes Aakar Patel.
The Bahujan Samaj Party will not enter into any alliance for Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand assembly polls, party chief Mayawati said.
Several legislators in states on Monday said they have cross-voted in favour of National Democratic Alliance nominee Droupadi Murmu by not following their respective party lines in the presidential election.
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
"I can say with confidence that the BJP will form the government in the state," he reiterated.
However, Rajya Sabha being a continuing chamber is not subject to dissolution, and bills introduced and pending in this House remain on the live register, unless withdrawn by the government.
The disqualifications of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and party member Ram Gopal Yadav were never taken back on papers. Sources said revoking the duo's disqualification was conditional.
SP has fielded Shivpal from Jaswant Nagar seat in Etawah district.
The Congress will conduct a caste census in Madhya Pradesh after winning the assembly polls and establish a university in the name of Sant Ravidas, said party president Mallikarjun Kharge, accusing the regime at the Centre of wishing to change the Constitution.
Among the notable absentees were Congress president Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's M K Stalin, Telugu Desam Party chief K Chandrashekhar Rao, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray and Delhi chief minister and Aam Admi Party convenor Arvind Kejriwal.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is considering fielding Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from Ayodhya as its senior leaders meet to finalise candidates for the assembly polls starting from February 10.
The swearing-in ceremony took place nine days after the Samajwadi Party secured an absolute majority in the seven-phased state assembly elections.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday attacked the Uttar Pradesh government over the death of a Kanpur businessman in a police raid, claiming that the case is linked to an extortion racket and "someone" is trying to save himself.
The ministers fanned out to different districts and interacted with officials and people to take stock of the implementation of government schemes at the grassroots level.
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