Umesh Pal, the prime witness in the 2005 murder of Bahujan Samaj Party MLA Raju Pal, was shot dead outisde his residence in Prayagraj, the police said.
If the six MLAs voted against the party whip, they were liable for disqualification from the assembly.
The core BSP campaign continues to be 'cadre-based' and personal connect, such as knocking each door or through nukkad sabhas.
Speaking to ANI, Mayawati said, "We have decided that to defeat the SP candidate in future MLC elections in UP, we will put all our force and even if we have to give our vote to BJP candidate or any party candidate, will do it. Any party candidate, who will be dominant over the SP's 2nd candidate, will get all the BSP MLAs' vote for sure."
In the past five years, UP's Opposition remained passive and defensive against the BJP, a trend that does not augur well for the impending battle.
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.
Voting for the bypolls in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were held on Wednesday.
The BJP, which won the Samajwadi Party strongholds of Rampur and Azamgarh in 2022 bypolls, hopes to wrest Mainpuri too.
'I will make Akash join the BSP movement and give him a chance to learn,' she said in a statement.
Jammu and Kashmir BJP chief Ravinder Raina, seeking re-election from Nowshera assembly constituency of Rajouri district in Jammu and Kashmir, is facing a major challenge from his former party colleague Surinder Choudhary.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi has called the meeting on Monday to discuss a strategy on protests over the CAA and the NRC.
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.
Political parties and leaders wait with bated breath for the Haryana and Jammu-Kashmir assembly poll results on Tuesday.
The withdrawal of the candidature by DPAP leaders on the last day on August 30 is seen as a boost to the NC-Congress alliance.
Polling for the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections will take place on Saturday, May 25, 2024, with 58 seats seats going to the polls across 8 states.
Hemant V Shivsaran/Rediff.com does a deep dive and lists the winners with the highest and lowest margins in the recent Lok Sabha elections.
Mayawati said she is fully assured that the people of the "Brahmin community will not get misled by the Bharatiya Janata Party and vote for the party in the upcoming elections".
The BSP is planning to bring the second line of leadership from among the cadres.
The electoral exercise, the first since the Lok Sabha elections, will decide the fate of many veterans and some debutantes including Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu's wife Kamlesh Thakur.
He also said the governments of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the BSP and the SP that have ruled Uttar Pradesh in the last 32 years, when Congress was not in power, failed to live up to the expectations of the people and the Congress was set for a comeback in the state.
The share of candidates who were successful among the BJP was 56.5% in 2019. It was 5% for the Congress.
BJP sources said the party has sought a reply from the South Delhi MP for his use of unparliamentary words.
An eighth BJP candidate on Thursday filed his nomination for the Rajya Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, setting the stage for a contest with the Samajwadi Party on February 27.
Statistics show the BSP has always gained from pre-poll alliances, reflecting in the party winning more seats in subsequent elections and largely retaining the vote share too. Virendra Singh Rawat reports.
The opposition parties on Sunday slammed the move to hire public servants through lateral entry, claiming it will snatch reservations from SCs, STs and OBCs, but the Bharatiya Janata Party hit back stating the National Democratic Alliance government was bringing transparency to this mode of recruitment started by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance.
Siddiqui, who hails from Banda, was earlier removed as the party in-charge of Uttar Pradesh and was appointed as the MP unit in-charge after the assembly poll debacle.
With their high-decibel campaigns so far, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party may appear to be locked in a direct fight in Uttar Pradesh.
The youth -- their dreams of government jobs unfulfilled -- are voicing their frustration.
She lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Samajwadi Party and the Congress, holding them responsible for the lack of jobs and migration from the state.
Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM, which is going to contest next year's Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls on the promise of creating leadership among Muslims, has created unease in the political parties that so far considered the members of the minority community as their core "vote bank".
The BSP will contest on 50 seats while the JJP on 40 in the 90 member state assembly polls due later this year.
BJP will find it tougher to push contentious Bills, especially those that would require Constitutional amendments, without the support of its allies and cooperation from the Opposition.
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.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday declared 13 candidates from Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha polls including actor Arun Govil, who played Lord Ram in popular TV serial Ramayan, from Meerut, while replacing sitting MP Varun Gandhi from Pilibhit with state minister Jitin Prasada.
'Unless she joins one of the coalitions, she has a bleak future.' 'The NDA option is suicidal, but INDIA could help her.'
On August 17, the top court had deferred the hearing on Dilawar's plea after it was informed that the Chief Justice of the high court has reportedly tested positive for COVID-19 and the functioning was postponed till August 19.
The journey for 24-year-old Akash Anand would be much tougher, because dynastic succession goes against the grain of Dalit politics that B R Ambedkar founded.
According to some of those present in the meeting, Mayawati also referred to the family feud in the Yadav clan, saying after Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav's younger brother Shivpal decided to contest separately the community votes were not transferred to the BSP, and the SP could not even save its "family seats".
On the eve of the counting of votes in Rajasthan, both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress have started reaching out to independent candidates, including rebels, and smaller parties.
Mayawati is now gearing up for a fresh start for the 2019 general election. Unconfirmed reports from the BSP camp suggest she has already reached out to arch-rival Akhilesh Yadav, reports Sahil Makkar.
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