The best-case scenario is that the BJP will top out at around 50 seats in UP -- a drop of 12 from the 62 it had won in 2019. Taken in tandem with Maharashtra and Karnataka, this is what is likely to put paid to the BJP's ambitions of a third term for Modi, argues Prem Panicker.
In her petition, Joshi squarely blamed state Chief Minister Mayawati and her henchmen for the arson attack.
To help the Congress break the impasse on the leadership issue, the three-MLA strong Bahujan Samaj Party on Sunday offered "unconditional support" to it in Uttarakhand and expressed desire to share power. "On the direction of Mayawati, our party has decided to give full support to Congress," state BSP President Surajmal told PTI.
In her bid to ward off the common impression that her administration was doing a wishy-washy job in the murder of a PWD engineer by a ruling Bahjan Samaj Party (BSP) MLA, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Wednesday ordered suspension of Auraiya district superintendent of police Ekramul Haque and dismissal of three other cops for their alleged complacence in the case.
"The BJP tried every trick to defeat the BSP candidate and indulged in malpractices," the BSP supremo alleged.
Karan Bhushan rejects the charges against his father, saying the "allegations are political and made up. We will challenge them in court".
Out of the 25 seats, five seats each are reserved for Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes.
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.
The four-time MLA and OBC leader joined the saffron party in presence of Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah.
Police on Wednesday arrested a man accused of urinating on a tribal youth in Madhya Pradesh's Sidhi district, an official said.
The Congress said the alliance between the BSP and Jogi's Janta Congress Chhattisgarh has the support of the BJP, which is ruling the state since 2003.
"Mayawati had sent offers to me to join BSP and threatened that otherwise I will be left doing rounds of courts and made to languish in jail," he told reporters in Lucknow. The SP general secretary also alleged that independent MLA Mukhtar Ansari, accused in Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Krishnand Rai murder case, and BSP MP Akbar Ahmad Dampi conspired to kill him during the recently-held Lok Sabha bypolls in UP.
In its first list for the upcoming assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, the ruling BJP has focused on seats it lost in 2018 and some of them even in 2013, and has reposed faith in 14 candidates, including three former ministers, who lost last time.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has pinned its hopes on the old guard to ensure victory in next month's assembly elections in Chhattisgarh as it gave tickets to 11 sitting MLAs and renominated 13 leaders who lost in the 2018 polls.
In a crackdown on associates of gangster Atiq Ahmed named in the sensational Umesh Pal murder case, the Prayagraj Development Authority on Wednesday demolished the house of a close aide of Ahmed.
He said the Uttar Pradesh police in all likelihood will seek his transit remand and also police remand to take him from Ahmedabad to Prayagraj and he "genuinely apprehends that he may be eliminated during this transit period".
Vijay has a lot of young and middle-aged women fans, but as voters, they are possibly now with the DMK, or remain with the AIADMK. Recapturing this constituency would have helped Vijay's political launch and the GOAT script and dialogues could have gone a long way in helping out. But the kind of script and screenplay and the unusually and equally unnecessary long run-time (3 hours, 3 minutes) that GOAT offers takes the film experience over the heads of those that are not familiar with secret agents and uranium theft in Tamil cinema, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Reacting to the results, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said that in the by-elections held on 13 seats in seven states, the people of the country have given their support to the INDIA bloc.
Earlier this week, the Congress claimed that the BJP had "abducted" some MLAs of the ruling party as well as its allies BSP and the SP to bring down the Madhya Pradesh government.
'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,".'
Banda chief judicial magistrate Bhagwan Das Gupta appointed Garima Singh, additional chief judicial magistrate (MP-MLA Court Banda) as the investigating officer in the case, the official said.
The development is being seen as a blow to the opposition Congress which was planning to forge a grand alliance in Chhattisgrah to unseat the ruling BJP.
Shami had been a five-time president of the Mauaima block. He was allegedly involved in a number of criminal cases.
In four seats in the coming Rajasthan assembly polls, relatives have been pitted against each other, which includes a husband contesting his wife and nieces up against their uncles.
Bansuri Swaraj, the daughter of former Union minister Sushma Swaraj, will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls from the New Delhi seat and incumbent MP Manoj Tiwari from Northeast Delhi as the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday announced the names of five candidates from the national capital, dropping four MPs -- Meenakshi Lekhi, Harsh Vardhan, Parvesh Verma and Ramesh Bidhuri.
The bullet-riddled bodies of Ahmad and Ashraf were taken away from the spot as tension gripped the area after the sensational killing.
Mishra lost from Datia seat by a margin of 7,742 votes to Congress candidate Rajendra Bharti.
Eight Union ministers, two former chief ministers and one ex-governor are among those who are set to test their electoral fate in the first phase of elections on April 19 when 102 seats across 21 states and Union territories will go to polls.
Over 60 per cent voter turnout was recorded on Monday in 49 constituencies in six states and two Union territories in the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections, with Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir recording its highest-ever voting percentage.
The prisons department had on Thursday issued an order for the premature release of Amarmani Tripathi, citing the state's 2018 policy on remission, since they have completed 16 years of imprisonment.
Atiq Ahmed is named in more than 100 criminal cases, including the recent Umesh Pal murder case
Jailed MLA of Quami Ekta Dal Mukhtar Ansari will withdraw his candidature from Varanasi against BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, "to strengthen secular forces and avoid division of votes".
The Lok Sabha Secretariat on Thursday revoked the disqualification of Bahujan Samaj Party leader Afzal Ansari as a member of the Lower House after the Supreme Court conditionally suspended his conviction in a Gangsters Act case.
In a special campaign from April 2017 till July 2021, 13,801 cases were lodged under the Gangster Act and 43,294 accused arrested, while the National Security Act was invoked against 630 people, Additional Director General of Police, Law and Order, Prashant Kumar said.
A visibly upset Shivpal Yadav said, "I was never called to any meeting (of the SP) and no information was given to me."
While a few 'bahubalis' managed wins in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, a majority of them were rejected by the voters. According to the results, many alleged dons-turned-politicians failed to make it to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.
Three Congress MLAs -- Hardeep Singh Dang, Bisahulal Singh and Raghuraj Kansana -- are reportedly still untraceable.
Violence erupted in Azamgarh district in Uttar Pradesh after former Member of Legislative Assembly and Bahujan Samaj Party leader Sarvesh Singh Seepu and another person was shot dead by unidentified assailants.
'They know that if they do not tie up with the Congress, then the minorities will move to the Congress.'
A local court in Banda on Friday extended the judicial remand alleged rapist MLA Purshottam Naresh Dwivedi by 14 days.
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