The ruling party is worried as the alliance represents over 50 per cent of the state's population, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.
While the BJP has the numbers to send its eight candidates to the Upper House, its ally, Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party, which has four MLAs in the 403-member UP assembly, holds key to the fate its ninth nominee.
He is the fourth chief minister from the saffron party to head the northern state. Before Adityanath, Kalyan Singh, Ram Prakash Gupta and Rajnath Singh of the BJP had served as Uttar Pradesh chief ministers.
The 52-year-old leader lost from Sirathu by nearly 7,000 votes, leading to speculations of his omission from the new Adityanath-led government.
In 2018, the BJP's rare successes in north-east India aside, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong for the party.
The crowd at the mosque was larger than usual, unsurprisingly because it happened to be the last "Jumma" (Friday) of the holy month of Ramzan.
Addressing an election meeting on what once was the home turf of slain gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday appeared to invoke nature as a great leveller -- a force that delivers justice.
'NDA allies have realised that if they don't dump the BJP, then people will dump their party in 2019.' 'People's mood is against the BJP'
'This is possibly a long drawn battle and if the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party are together in this long battle, a new political picture will emerge in the country.' 'In this battle if we have to sacrifice or give up anything, we are ready.' 'We have to remain cautious against the BJP's attempts to break our unity.' 'We want this alliance to stay.'
The Modi govt is continuously indulging in theatrics on issues related to Dalits and backwards and any more drama on the issue will not get them any political mileage, Mayawati said.
Atiq Ahmed is named in more than 100 criminal cases, including the recent Umesh Pal murder case
The CM added the BJP has learnt its "lessons" and exuded confidence it will perform better in future polls.
According to the results announced on Thursday, 25 Samajwadi Party candidates were defeated by less than 5,000 votes while a similar fate awaited three nominees of the Rashtriya Lok Dal.
Nothing has been done for Dalits in the last four years, Nagina MP Yashwant Singh wrote in a letter to the PM.
In the same breath, the RPI-A leader said, "No one can challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- neither Congress president Rahul Gandhi, nor SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, nor BSP supremo Mayawati."
The other BJP MLA, Shyam Prakash from Gopamau (SC) in Hardoi, posted a satirical poem on Facebook.
'2019 now looks like a real contest.' 'It will not be a repeat of 2014 if the BJP has to deal with erosion of its already low vote share of 31 per cent, and also faces a united Opposition,' says T N Ninan.
The former UP CM also expressed his gratitude towards Mayawati, who was once his party's bitterest rival in UP.
The BJP is still short of the halfway mark of 123 in the 245-member House, but can now muster a 'working' majority with help of allies, friendly parties, some Independents and nominated members.
'The Congress's policy is it will take benefits from everybody, but when it gets an opportunity, it does not want to share it with others'
Caste assertions, including from the upper castes, could have the Sangh Parivar stumble yet again in its efforts to construct a Hindu rashtra.
Kaif's tweet received nearly 5k likes and prompted responses lilke 'The beauty of India', 'This is the India of our dreams', 'We the people of India... Jai Hind.'
'For the BJP to lose this virtual pocket borough of the saffron brotherhood demonstrates how resolutely the people of Gorakhpur have turned against the party,' says Amulya Ganguli.
The rapprochement could open the door to an anti-saffron alliance for the 2019 general elections, reports Archis Mohan.
The murder of Atiq and his brother and the police encounter with his son have raised many questions about the propriety of how crime is tackled by the Yogi government. But Yogi knows he has the support of the people who are fed up with crime holding the state to ransom for decades, asserts Ramesh Menon.
The Bharatiya Janata Party announced a major organisational reshuffle in the party, appointing Hindu hardliner Keshav Maurya and former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa as state party presidents in Uttar Pradesh and Karntaka respectively.
Modi and Shah can't afford to lose any of the 24 per cent Dalit vote of 2014, says Shekhar Gupta.
'If these two parties come together, there could be amalgamation of OBC, Dalits and Muslim votes.'
Akhilesh said that the defeat of the Dalit candidate would cement his party's relations with Mayawati-led BSP.
Ahead of the 2019 elections, the race for consolidating the Dalit vote-bank has intensified among all the political parties, more so in Uttar Pradesh, where the community comprises almost 21 per cent of the population.
'It will be a grand alliance where they could get the Muslims, Dalits and Yadavs in one camp and pose a serious challenge to whatever the BJP might conjure up in the run-up to the 2019 election.'
With the Yogi Adityanath government taking credit for cracking down on criminals and making it an election issue, political parties are now having a rethink on aligning with those who have a criminal background but also enjoy influence in their areas.
Given the controversy over Uttar Pradesh's population control moves, Hemant Shivsaran/Rediff.com digs deep to find out how many children BJP MLAs in UP have.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday condemned the attack on black-flag carrying protesters at Rahul Gandhi's rally in Phulpur allegedly by two Union ministers and other senior Congress leaders, saying they have no right to lower the dignity of the posts they hold.
Gandhi, who was here to attend the BJP's national executive, was conspicuous by his absence at the meeting of Lok Sabha MPs, which was attended by PM Modi among others.
The BSP is contesting on 20 seats in Karnataka election with an alliance with Janata Dal-Secular while the SP is contesting on 27 on its own.
Opportunistic face of SP has come before the people: Yogi Adityanth.
They are believed to have discussed the evolving political situation in the state where opposition parties have joined hands to challenge the BJP.
'There will be a broad coalition of non-BJP parties in at least 25 states'
Mayawati was outmanoeuvred by the BJP in the race for the Rajya Sabha in Uttar Pradesh just days after she helped the Samajwadi Party snatch two Lok Sbaha seats from the saffron party in bypolls.
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