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.
From Instagram to X, social media platforms, in the run-up to the polls have seen bitter poster wars and even bitter meme battles for political one-upmanship.
Voters include 8.4 crore men, 8.23 crore women and 11,371 from third gender. There are as many as 35.67 lakh first time voters, besides 3.51 crore young voters in the age group of 20-29 years.
The meeting, which began around 10:30 pm on Thursday, lasted for more than four hours and was held at the party's headquarters in New Delhi.
A day after 12 students and two teachers were killed in a boat accident in Harni lake on the outskirts of Vadodara city in Gujarat, three persons, including a manager of a contractor, have been arrested, said a police official on Friday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, and Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar supremo Sharad Pawar were among the famous faces who queued up at the polling booths on Tuesday to caste their votes in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
Though the extended tenure of incumbent president JP Nadda ends on June 30, a recent amendment in the BJP's constitution has empowered its apex body, the Parliamentary Board, to take a call related to a president, including his term, in "emergency" situations.
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.
Bhatia said he has belief in the 'Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas' call of Modi and Shah.
The stakes are significant for the BJP in this round as the party had in 2019 won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, that will go to polls on May 7.
This was a difficult election to win, but the Modi card, the caste divide and the division in the Opposition vote bank helped overcome many challenges.
In Delhi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah assessed the situation in Joshimath and steps taken to ameliorate people's hardship at a meeting attended by Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, R K Singh, Bhupendra Yadav and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and top officials.
Speculation has gained ground that she will contest from Rampur as she has been elected from there twice.
The CM was present at the Patna airport to receive body of the LJP founder with whom he spent long time in the politics. The CM and other leaders cutting across party lines paid respect to the septuagenarian leader, who died in Delhi on Thursday, at the airport premises.
More than 48 lakh candidates appeared in the examination conducted on February 17 and 18 across the state.
Here's how our netas faring in the elections.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took a swipe at the BJP, saying one has to refer to the state-wise election schedule to know when one will have access to the vaccine. The BJP, however, said health is a state subject and its manifesto is for Bihar, not for the entire country, where it has promised that the state will buy the vaccine for its people.
Independence Day was celebrated across states and Union territories on Thursday, as several chief ministers announced job schemes while some others vowed their support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of a Viksit Bharat by 2047.
The BJP is focusing on 160 seats 'we have never won, seats where we have reasonable support, and those we lost narrowly.'
The series of meetings are being seen as an attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party to reach out to allies who have either been criticising or expressing their dissent with the party and also to strengthen the National Democratic Alliance ahead of the Lok Sabha polls next year.
To involve workers in various social campaigns initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah has formed nine separate committees of senior leaders.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Prakash Javadekar has apparently admitted his presence at a meeting shown in a sting operation in connection with the Tulsi Prajapati encounter case.
Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and other ministers took charge of their respective offices on Thursday, a day after taking oath at a ceremony held in the Darbar Hall of the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
The states and union territories where the elections are being held in this phase are Assam (4), Bihar (5), Chhattisgarh (7), Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (2), Goa (2), Gujarat (25), Karnataka (14), Maharashtra (11), Madhya Pradesh (8), Uttar Pradesh (10) and West Bengal (4). The BJP has bagged the Surat seat unopposed.
At a meeting of the business advisory committee of Lok Sabha, which has floor leaders of all parties besides the government representatives and is chaired by the Speaker, most political parties favoured curtailment of the session, which started on September 14 and was scheduled to conclude on October 1.
The gravity of the incident which happened in Parliament should not be underestimated, the prime minister said
Lalit Modi's interview with television news channel explaining how Vasundhara Raje took his wife to Portugal for cancer treatment shows that he is seeking revenge against the Rajasthan chief minister.
Kumar, who looks on course to becoming the longest serving chief minister of the state during his new term, was expected to take oath on or after Monday next week before which he will send his resignation to the governor since his current tenure expires at the end of November.
The BJP, which has traditionally been considered as the party of upper castes and Vaishyas/Baniyas, seems to be consolidating its base especially among Vaishyas and EBCs.
BJP leaders Bhupendra Yadav and G V L Narsimha Rao were addressing the media.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh will be the deputy leader of the party in the Lok Sabha and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the Rajya Sabha.
The gross expenses made by the party, including by the central headquarters and the state unit between the announcement and completion of the elections, stood at nearly Rs 71.73 crore, while the gross receipts during this period were to the tune of Rs 35.83 crore.
At the meeting which lasted for more than half an hour, the leaders of the two parties are understood to have discussed the key issue of seat-sharing among alliance partners in the NDA, which also includes Ram Vilas Paswan's LJP.
Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad announced Adhikari's name as leader of the BJP legislature party in the assembly after a meeting of the legislators at the party's Hastings office.
Though the run-up to the poll saw a high pitched campaign by the parties, the turnout of the voters on December 1 was an unimpressive 46.55 per cent (34.50 lakh) out of the total 74.67 lakh voters.
The BJP hopes to highlight the "insulting" Congress meme on social media that had described the PM as a 'chaiwala', reports Archis Mohan.
Madhaw Anand, the party's principal national general secretary and chief spokesperson, resigned from the posts as well as the primary membership stating that the party ran the risk of being "finished" on account of the "inconsequential" move.
With this, the ruling BJP has so far declared candidates for 136 seats. Earlier, the BJP had announced 79 candidates, including two lists of 39 each, and another list of one nominee.
The seats held by the non-BJP parties in the state are Bijnor, Amroha, Moradabad, Sambhal, Raebareli, Ghosi, Lalganj, Jaunpur, Ambedkarnagar, Ghazipur, Shravasti, Mainpuri, Saharanpur and Nagina. Of these, Raebareli is held by Sonia Gandhi of the Congress.
The development came within hours of Fadnavis' presser in which he denied that the Sena was ever promised the CM's post for two-and-a-half years when the alliance was formalised before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
