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.
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 ruling party is worried as the alliance represents over 50 per cent of the state's population, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.
The BSP chief said Uttar Pradesh, which is India's largest state, will decide who will be the next prime minister.
Considering that the three assailants who shot Atiq Ahmed and his brother posed as journalists, the commission suggested the media "observe certain restraints while covering such incidents".
Opposition parties on Wednesday opposed the 'one nation, one election' proposal by calling it impractical and a 'cheap stunt' by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
BSP legislators were earlier supporting the Ashok Gehlot government from outside and were in constant touch with the chief minister.
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 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.
The train hit the cylinder before coming to a screeching halt on Sunday morning. Due to being hit by the train, the cylinder was thrown away from the tracks, they said.
Mayawati said that in case of a tie-up with the Congress in the past, the party did not benefit.
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.
As controversy raged over Yati Narsinghanand's objectionable remarks against Prophet Muhammad, his supporters on Sunday alleged that the Dasna temple head priest is being illegally kept in detention by police, which denied the claim.
Voting for the bypolls in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were held on Wednesday.
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.
Ali said the JD-S did not have a large organisational structure in Uttar Pradesh, which sends most lawmakers to the Parliament.
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.
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 share of candidates who were successful among the BJP was 56.5% in 2019. It was 5% for the Congress.
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.
'Unless she joins one of the coalitions, she has a bleak future.' 'The NDA option is suicidal, but INDIA could help her.'
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.
Instead of harvesting the wrath against the BJP and using it to their advantage by opting for a collective form of leadership, the Congress decided once again to bestow their trust in the Hooda family who were given a free hand in the distribution of tickets. This turned out to be the biggest blunder and this faulty selection was the single over riding factor in the Congress defeat, explains Rashme Sehgal.
Swati said that she had lodged an FIR against the "misdeeds" of BSP workers led by Naseemuddin Siddqui "at the behest of Mayawati".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
She said neither the Congress nor the BJP works in the interests of the upper castes' poor and the remaining majority.
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.
Mukhtar Ansari's Quami Ekta Dal's merger with the Samajwadi Party last year had triggered turmoil in that party.
The youth -- their dreams of government jobs unfulfilled -- are voicing their frustration.
The BSP-Congress tie-up is a done deal. Only the formalities need to be gone through and announced.
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.
However, the BJP is sceptical about the SP-BSP alliance as they believe Mayawati and Akhilesh will "finish off after fighting among themselves."
Political parties and leaders wait with bated breath for the Haryana and Jammu-Kashmir assembly poll results on Tuesday.
