'...It is important for you to take a stand.' 'It is a sin to remain silent when the basic structure of the Constitution is being attacked.'
'The opposition wants the country to run on the basis of Shariat but this cannot happen'
Confident of giving a tough fight to Congress and BJP, Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party, which surprised many by ranking third in 2008 Assembly elections with a vote share of 14 per cent, is all to set announce its candidates for all the 70 seats in Delhi.
Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Legislative Assembly Sangeet Som, accused of uploading a fake video that played a role in provoking communal tension in Muzaffarnagar and making inflammatory speeches, was arrested on Saturday.
The Bahujan Samaj Party, which has decided to contest the Lok Sabha elections on its own, on Tuesday announced candidates for 12 out of 39 constituencies in Tamil Nadu. In the first phase, BSP president Mayawati cleared 12 names and the process was on to select candidates for the remaining constituencies. The party was in the process of identifying suitable candidates from each community to be fielded in all the Lok Sabha constituencies in Tamil Nadu, said a BSP leader.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party won the mayoral elections in 10 of the 17 municipal corporations in Uttar Pradesh, results for which were announced on Saturday, virtually adding a third engine to its "double-engine" government.
Kicking off Uttar Pradesh poll campaign, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah on Saturday took a dig at infighting in the Mulayam Singh Yadav family and targeted the ruling Samajwadi Party as well as the Bahujan Samaj Party, saying neither party is bothered about development of the state.
'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,".'
'You are one of the drops that make that ocean, but when you leave it makes no difference to the ocean.'
Founder of Bahujan Samaj Party, Kanshi Ram, died in New Delhi early on Monday due to complications arising out of multiple ailments he had been suffering for quite some time.
Ruling out any truck with the Bahujan Samaj Party, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday gave his battle cry against the Mayawati regime.
The parties which gave chief ministers and sent scores of MPs to Parliament, drew a blank this time.
Ruling out any election alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party in the coming Lok Sabha polls, the CPI(M) today said the two parties would, however, come together on common issues to keep the Congress-led UPA and BJP-led NDA at bay.
'Everybody knows Mayawati sells party tickets and even her party members take pride in telling this'
Forty-two of the 102 Lok Sabha seats going to polls in the general election's first phase are constituencies that have three or more candidates facing criminal cases, according to a poll rights body.
Opposition Bahujan Samaj Party on Tuesday created noisy scenes in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly over alleged "massive irregularities" in the procurement of wheat in the state and walked out expressing dissatisfaction of the government's response to the matter.
Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra on Tuesday claimed that the meeting of the ethics committee of the Lok Sabha was postponed to keep a Congress member away from the proceedings and adopt the report by a majority, prompting a sharp retort from Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey.
Three of the fence-sitters rule fairly large states Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha that together send 63 members to Lok Sabha -- where the Congress or other opposition parties have been pushed to the margins.
The electoral battle in Varanasi, according to locals and political experts, is not about whether the PM will win for a third successive occasion, but if he will increase his share of the votes polled and his win margin.
Electioneering ended in Madhya Pradesh at 6 pm except in Naxalites-hit districts of Balaghat, Mandla and Dindori, where campaigning drew to a close early at 3 pm.
'EVMs did not accept votes polled for any party other than BJP'. The BSP chief said that the results in UP and Uttarakhand were surprising and not palatable to anyone.
Cricketer-turned-politician Chetan Sharma on Tuesday quit the Bahujan Samaj Party and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party at a function in Faridabad but said he will not contest the forthcoming assembly elections in Haryana.
Agrahari said the case against the eight men was filed at the complaint of Umesh Pal's wife Jaya Pal.
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.
SP president Akhilesh Yadav and RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary announced the tie-up on social media for the elections later this year.
Giving a new twist to the race for power in Uttarakhand, Bahujan Samaj Party, whose three MLAs can tilt the balance, on Thursday said it was in touch with both Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party as the two rival contenders for power claimed they will form the next government.
Mayawati must not be shattered right now. Had she not done what she did, she would have lost the Dalit votebank -- that would have been the end of her political career. As someone told me during the elections, the BSP was not fighting this election for power. It was fighting this election to save its core, says Shivam Vij.
Mayawati said it became necessary for her to make the announcement as the Congress and some other parties, as part of a "conspiracy", are allegedly trying to create an impression that they would be forging an alliance with the BSP.
Arrested ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLA Shekhar Tiwari on Friday confessed that he had beaten and tortured PWD executive engineer Manoj Kumar Gupta until he succumbed to his wounds in the early hours of December 24 in Auraiya in central Uttar Pradesh.
The Uttar Pradesh police on Monday arrested two gunmen engaged in the personal security of Bahujan Samaj Party legislator Shekhar Tiwari, who is behind bars for allegedly murdering PWD engineer Manoj Kumar Gupta in Auraiya on December 24. "We suspect Tiwari's gunners Pal Singh and Gajraj Singh, so we arrested them today," UP Additional Director General of Police (law and order) Brijlal said on Minday evening.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
In a letter to the prime minister, Ali also demanded that he be provided enhanced security in view of an "escalation of threats" against him.
A senior SP leader requesting anonymity said that the party chief had called a meeting to brief the MLAs about the voting process of the Rajya Sabha elections.
Sensing defeat, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have launched a new game plan for a fractured mandate in Uttar Pradesh so that they can have bargaining power, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday.
Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Mukul Upadhyay on Saturday became emotional and broke down while addressing a rally in Ramlila ground of Kavinagar area. The incident took place shortly before BSP supremo Mayawati's arrival at the rally venue.
Party to contest 160 seats in Madhya Pradesh, 125 in Rajasthan, 55 in Chhattisgarh and 40 in Delhi in coming Assembly polls
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
A day after failing to topple the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government during the trust vote, leaders of the Left parties, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the United National Progressive Alliance met in New Delhi to chalk out their future course of action.The meeting, held at the residence of BSP supremo Mayawati, was attended by Communist Party of India Marxist General Secretary Prakash Karat, Communist Party of India leaders A B Bardhan and D Raja.
"The two parties always had a tacit understanding in Uttar Pradesh," Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh told media persons when asked his views on the BJP and BSP describing party general secretary Rahul Gandhi's 'padayatra' in UP as a political drama.
BSP's poor show in Delhi assembly elections may cost it national party status.
