"The day news of the SP-BSP top leadership meeting came out, the BJP government used the CBI and raids were conducted in an old mining scam and the news of quizzing Akhilesh Yadav was deliberately spread. Is it not an action to defame the SP-BSP alliance?" Mayawati said.
BSP legislators were earlier supporting the Ashok Gehlot government from outside and were in constant touch with the chief minister.
Capping its impressive showing in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, the Bahujan Samaj Party also swept the three Lok Sabha bypolls for Mirzapur, Robertsganj and Bilhaur.
The Union government has ordered the complete withdrawal of the counter-terrorist commando force NSG from VIP security duties and handing over its nine "high-risk" VIPs to the CRPF by next month, official sources said Wednesday.
Mayawati said that in case of a tie-up with the Congress in the past, the party did not benefit.
She accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being 'anti-Dalit' and recalled the Una incident and the death of Dalit scholar Rohit Vemula to back her assertion.
Ali said the JD-S did not have a large organisational structure in Uttar Pradesh, which sends most lawmakers to the Parliament.
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.
BJP sources said the party has sought a reply from the South Delhi MP for his use of unparliamentary words.
Accoding to data collected by the Association for Democratic Reforms, of the 695 candidates in the fray, 227 are crorepatis.
Swati said that she had lodged an FIR against the "misdeeds" of BSP workers led by Naseemuddin Siddqui "at the behest of Mayawati".
Faced with one of the worst showing in the Lok Sabha polls, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati on Tuesday dissolved all the committees of the party.
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.
Congress today received a shot in the arm in its bid to revive the party in Uttar Pradesh with a former Bahujan Samaj Party Rajya Sabha member joining it.
Earlier, when reporters asked Nath about his party's strategy for the elections in the central Indian state, he had said the party had not started talks of alliance with anyone.
Hitting back at Bharatiya Janata Party Chief Amit Shah after he needled her on desertions in the Bahujan Samaj Party, former chief minister Mayawati on Sunday said his "childish" remarks betrayed BJP's nervousness ahead of assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.
She said neither the Congress nor the BJP works in the interests of the upper castes' poor and the remaining majority.
Ramesh Meena, who was among those BSP legislators who made the switch to Congress, said: "The chief minister should honestly tell how much money was paid to us when we joined Congress and left the the BSP in the last Congress government."
Mukhtar Ansari's Quami Ekta Dal's merger with the Samajwadi Party last year had triggered turmoil in that party.
The BSP-Congress tie-up is a done deal. Only the formalities need to be gone through and announced.
Among the national parties, the Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Communist Party of India-Marxist opposed the proposal, while the Bharatiya Janata Party and the National People's Party supported it.
Congress leader Kumari Selja ruled out the possibility of an alliance with the AAP for the Haryana assembly polls.
However, the BJP is sceptical about the SP-BSP alliance as they believe Mayawati and Akhilesh will "finish off after fighting among themselves."
Despite this setback, Pandey emphasised that discussions regarding ticket distribution are ongoing and solutions will be found through timely communication.
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.
The four-time MLA and OBC leader joined the saffron party in presence of Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah.
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.
The BJP, which won the Samajwadi Party strongholds of Rampur and Azamgarh in 2022 bypolls, hopes to wrest Mainpuri too.
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.
'Unless she joins one of the coalitions, she has a bleak future.' 'The NDA option is suicidal, but INDIA could help her.'
"The BJP tried every trick to defeat the BSP candidate and indulged in malpractices," the BSP supremo alleged.
Mayawati added that the BSP's relationship with the SP is never going to end and she will try to ensure that their relationship stays intact.
The brothers were booked under the UP Gangsters Act in connection with the murder of the then BJP MLA from Ghazipur, Krishnanad Rai, on November 29, 2005 and the kidnapping-murder of Varanasi-based trader Nand Kishore Rungta in 1997.
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.
The response was tepid in other parts of the country even as several INDIA bloc parties as well as other non-BJP outfits extended their support to the bandh.
The two parties named the seats distributed among them in a statement signed by SP president Akhilesh Yadav and BSP chief Mayawati.
Congress leaders, on their part, are confident that the mobilisation of voters away from the BJP will gain more momentum in the state elections, scheduled for October 1, in the absence of national issues and the 'Modi factor'.
The share of candidates who were successful among the BJP was 56.5% in 2019. It was 5% for the Congress.
Describing Mayawati as a "living goddess", the ruling BSP in Uttar Pradesh, facing a hail of criticism over the garland issue, says it will continue to weigh its party supremo in gold and silver.
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.
