Political watchers are keen to see if the party will now opt for a more seasoned face from its ranks for the vice presidential candidate.
In a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday said when the elections are over, people will only remember him as the PM who indulged in 'divisive and communal speeches filled with lies' to avoid an inevitable defeat.
Is the Union government responsible for it (Dalit atrocities)? Is the party (BJP) responsible for it?," Ahir asked.
Of the three young caste leaders, OBC leader Alpesh Thakor has already joined the Congress, while Patidar community leader Hardik Patel recently announced his decision to back the opposition party after accepting its proposed reservation formula.
A special court in Moradabad has acquitted all 74 accused, including UP Cabinet minister Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary and local Bharatiya Janata Party legislator Ritesh Kumar Gupta, for allegedly attacking policemen during the protest in Kanth area of the district in 2014.
OBC leader Dharam Singh Saini on Thursday became the third minister to resign from the Uttar Pradesh cabinet this week, giving yet another jolt to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the run-up to the assembly polls.
The senior Paswan sought an appointment and waited for more than three months but Rahul Gandhi did not relent, said Chirag Paswan, who at that time too was keen to leave the UPA and join the National Democratic Alliance.
The BJP leadership knows it can't boast of governance in the state as the Bommai government has little to show. So, the game plan is to project Modi, who will reiterate how important it is for a state to have the same party ruling in power at the Centre, observes Ramesh Menon.
Manjhi said Paswan has never raised a voice for rights of the Dalits and the poorest of the poor.
Of these 14, all but three won the election on Thursday.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav will contest the Lok Sabha elections from Kannauj, the party announced on Wednesday, two days after it had declared another candidate for the Uttar Pradesh seat.
Without making two-thirds of the country's population a development partner, India's prosperity is impossible, the Congress leader added.
Dalit votes could play a decisive role in 28-30 constituencies in the 230-member assembly.
Pictures of the well laid out dining table with an assortment of dishes and cutlery went viral on the social media.
The BSP leader won the Bijnor Lok Sabha seat in 1989, her first electoral triumph.
A new entrant, whether a popular actor or not, has not been able to sweep the polls, as their fans had hoped for. Given a proven pattern, it should hold true for Vijay as well. Or, something drastically has to happen between now and 2026, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
'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,".'
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.
'Adivasi seats will sound the bugle of the end of the BJP regime in Gujarat.'
A meeting of Aam Aadmi Party MLAs will be held on Tuesday morning, and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is likely to tender his resignation after it, the party said.
The BJP had replaced Raj from the North West Delhi Lok Sabha constituency with Punjabi Sufi singer Hans Raj Hans.
While it is the right-leaning Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) which chose Kovind, Narayanan, a diplomat-turned politician, became vice president in 1992 and the president in 1997 courtesy active support from the Left, which had proposed his name first
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said the Bharatiya Janata Party was committed to taking tough steps to rid India of corruption, nepotism and law and order challenges.
Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad Yadav on Tuesday said he was in favour of extending reservation benefits to Muslims but emphasised that it should be based on social backwardness and 'not on the basis of religion'.
Fresh protests erupted on the University of Hyderabad campus on Tuesday over the alleged suicide by Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula even as members of a social outfit tried to hold a demonstration outside the residence of Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, who has been accused in the suicide case.
Saini said he had resigned from Yogi Adiyanth government because 'for five years Dalits, backward classes were suppressed, their voices were suppressed'.
"If you want to shoot, shoot me," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, as he called for stopping the attacks on Dalits and the politics over it.
The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister is scheduled to attend a meeting of PDA "Picchda (backward classes), Dalit and Alpsankhyak (minorities)" at the party office in Lucknow and has no plans to go anywhere till now
This appears to be a common refrain in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur Kheri Lok Sabha constituency where farmers want better prices for their produce and respite from the stray cattle menace and others want political leaders to talk about job creation instead of issues like the Ram temple and Article 370.
'Some of his ministers have performed abysmally, and Bommai has faced an unwanted campaign of religious polarisation imposed by national BJP leaders.'
BJP president Nitin Gadkari on Friday had a word of praise for Rahul Gandhi, saying the young Congress leader is doing a good job in spending time with Dalit families.
The post-mortem reports of the two Dalit minor sisters who were found hanging from a tree in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur Kheri district confirmed that they were raped and strangulated, the police said on Thursday.
Reddy assured her that an investigation would be conducted again into the University of Hyderabad student's suicide in 2016 and that justice would be done, an official release said.
Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge cited national crime data to take on the government, saying every 80 minutes a crime against Dalit was taking place, three Dalits raped and two murdered every day.
'Young Dalits are looking for better educational opportunities, more job avenues in the private sector, which need not necessarily mean job quotas, but a more welcoming corporate world that offers a liberated social environment, essentially a new India.'
'Besides Ayodhya, the BJP lost in nine other constituencies with a Ramayana imprint; it tasted success only in Thrissur.' 'In Rameswaram, K Navaskani of the Indian Union Muslim League won with a 44% voteshare in a 84% Hindu constituency.' 'In the 21 seats in the Ayodhya and Varanasi regions, both crucial to the Hindutva project, the BJP won just 7.' 'It won just 3 out of 12 seats around Modi's constituency,' points out Krishna Prasad.
Soren, addressing a rally in Bhognadih on the occasion of 'Hul Diwas', also claimed that the saffron party has turned 'jittery' after his release from jail and its leaders are 'conspiring' against him again.
The BJP took into consideration caste and regional aspirations while picking ministers in a bid to further consolidate its hold over the politically crucial state which sends the maximum of 80 members to Lok Sabha.
This will pave the way for emergence of 24,000 new panchayat-level leaders in Telangana, he said.
A senior SP leader requesting anonymity said that the party chief had called a meeting to brief the MLAs about the voting process of the Rajya Sabha elections.
