In a major upset in the Faizabad parliamentary constituency, where the temple town of Ayodhya is situated, Samajwadi Party candidate Awadhesh Prasad defeated sitting Bharatiya Janata Party MP Lallu Singh by a margin of 54,567 votes.
Akhilesh Yadav hit back, saying no one had any clue that the alliance was coming apart and that he had dialled the BSP chief to know why the tie-up ended.
Nagpur Guardian Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule said social media was used to vitiate the atmosphere, and appealed to the opposition not to politicise the matter.
The high-level committee on 'one nation, one election' approached 62 parties out which 47 responded -- 32 in support of holding elections simultaneously, 15 against it.
For Adityanath, it's not just a chance to reaffirm his dominance in Uttar Pradesh, it's an opportunity to solidify his narrative as a vote-winner.
BSP chief Mayawati removed her nephew Akash Anand from all party posts and said that she will not name her successor till she is alive. In a slew of other significant changes in the BSP leadership announced at a high-level meeting of the party's office-bearers from across the country, Mayawati appointed her brother Anand Kumar and Ramji Gautam as national coordinators. Mayawati also criticized the budgets of both the central and Uttar Pradesh governments, saying they were "unrealistic" and detached from ground realities.
The Samajwadi Party and Congress have announced that they will contest together under the INDIA bloc.
The birth anniversary of Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, whose political influence has surged with the passage of time, on Monday was marked by bitter trading of charges between the ruling BJP and opposition parties as they fought for his legacy.
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.
When asked from where Akhilesh Yadav will contest, the source said that the party has not yet disclosed the seat.
The Congress has proposed AAP should contest five seats while the Samajwadi Party and Left parties could contest one seat each.
The BJP got the benefit of a split in Muslim votes in some seats of western UP, and its candidates registered wins from Muzaffarnagar, Kairana, Meerut, Bulandshahr, Baghpat and Aligarh Lok Sabha seats.
Hours after Uttar Pradesh labour and employment minister Swami Prasad Maurya quit his post, his daughter and the Bharatiya Janata Party's Badaun MP Sanghamitra Maurya on Tuesday claimed her father has not joined any party and will reveal his strategy in a couple of days.
The Congress on Monday released a list of 30-star campaigners for the first phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.
Giving a free run to Samajwadi Party nominee Dimple Yadav, wife of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, the Bahujan Samajwadi Party on Wednesday announced that it will not contest the by-elections to Kannauj parliamentary constituency
The government engineered a victory of sorts when it succeeded in neutralising the Samajwadi party, the Bahujan Samajwadi Party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Trinamool Congress in stacking up the numbers on the FDI issue, says Renu Mittal.
The BJP, which has allied with a few smaller parties, has sought to upend the state's conventional politics, which has so far been indifferent to Hindutva politics, by taking the ruling DMK head-on for its alleged insult of Sanatan Dharma besides involvement in corruption.
Accoding to data collected by the Association for Democratic Reforms, of the 695 candidates in the fray, 227 are crorepatis.
Besides disclosing in their affidavits, candidates have to prominently declare criminal cases they are facing, if any, thrice in newspapers in print as well on television, he said, adding that political parties too have to publish within three days of nomination why a candidate with criminal background was selected. "You (political parties) have to tell the public whether you did not get any (other) candidate and why was it necessary to select them (those with criminal background)," he said.
"It is not where the party president says something and the next day the exact opposite of what he had said happens. This gives out a bad image of party because it affects political credibility of the party," Singh told PTI in an interview.
The BSP has not entered into any alliances and has also been keen to shed the tag of being a 'B-team' of the BJP.
Polling for the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha election will be held on Saturday, May 25, 2024.
The parties which gave chief ministers and sent scores of MPs to Parliament, drew a blank this time.
There was an 8% decline in the BJP's vote share across six regions in UP, and that some OBC castes moved away from the BJP.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Mahayuti alliance on Saturday retained power in Maharashtra, pocketing a whopping 230 of the 288 assembly seats, as the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi's dream of wresting power fizzled, with the opposition combine managing to garner just 50 seats.
From putting up a decent performance in the last Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh winning 10 seats stitching an alliance with arch rival Samajwadi Party, Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party drew a blank in the current general elections, dealing a severe blow to its reputation of representing the voice of Dalits in the state.
Acting on Speaker Manohar Joshi's directive, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said she had spoken to Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani and he had sought a day's time to collect relevant information from the state government.
The BJP is leaning on Yogi's 'batenge to katenge' theme to weave a unifying narrative that transcends caste and communal lines.
Earlier, a Uttar Pradesh court refused to recognise 40 rebel Bahujan Samajwadi Party legislators, plunging the state into a political crisis.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the NDA won 64 seats -- 62 bagged by the BJP and two by Apna Dal.
'They know that if they do not tie up with the Congress, then the minorities will move to the Congress.'
Polling for the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections for 94 seats will take place today, covering 11 States and Union Territory.
At last things are going right for Mulayam Singh Yadav. Former socialist, former defence minister, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister -- Yadav and his Samajwadi Party had been feeling seriously disempowered in the last few months after they lost power in UP and a government of the Bahujan Samaj Party led by Mayawati came to power, over which SP had absolutely no leverage whatsoever.
Outgoing Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samajwadi Party president Mayawati on Tuesday filed her nomination for the Rajya Sabha.
Former UP Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati on Tuesday lashed out at Samjawadi government's decision to rename Manyavar Kanshiramji Urdu-Farsi University, saying it was a "politically vindictive act".
Yadav asserted that he has always maintained that seat distribution should be decided considering which alliance partner is the strongest in a particular state.
Akhilesh Yadav's stock rose dramatically on Tuesday with his Samajwadi Party cutting the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party down to size in Uttar Pradesh.
To keep their MLAs together, political parties are organising dinner meetings and arranging hotel stays for them ahead of the council elections, which are taking place just three months ahead of the assembly polls in the state.
The party would consider aligning with any party after assessing the post-poll situation, she said.
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