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.
Bahujan Samaj Party general secretary Satish Misra, who is regarded as the architect of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's much-hyped 'social engineering', on Tuesday flatly denied having called his party president corrupt.
The occasion, which brought Yadav, a former chief minister, and the Bahujan Samaj Party supremo together was a meeting convened to finalise nominees for the State Human Rights Commission. The arch rivals had parted ways following the collapse of their coalition government in 1995 and have been bitter critics attacking each other and rarely acknowledging even the presence of the other at public functions.
Rising from the shock and dismay of the devastating defeat at the March state assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati is trying to put her party back into gear."We must show the Samajwadi Party its place in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, in which we must retain our last tally of 20 seats at all costs," Mayawati told a gathering of her party leaders in Lucknow last week.
On the birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Monday attacked Bharatiya Janata Party leaders saying when polls come they see Dalits as Hindus but later they do not even like to sit with them, and the party was not happy when the architect of the Constitution got Bharat Ratna.
The ruling Congress, voted to office in 2018 after 15 years in opposition, and the Bharatiya Janata Party are the main contenders for power in the state, where the Aam Aadmi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and some regional outfits are also in the fray.
The demolition of Sahara Shahar's illegal encroachments is symbolic. The real assault will be executed at the right psychological and emotional moment, in true Mayawati style. Make no mistake.
Vardhan had said on Friday, "Doctors at AIIMS are doing the best they can."
With two more phases to go in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, Chief Minister Mayawati is confident of returning to power. "We would do better than the 2007 elections," said a beaming 'Behenji' after she cast her vote in Lucknow in the fourth phase of the elections on Sunday.
Smelling a major scam in the recent sale of four sugar mills by the Uttar Pradesh government, the Congress on Thursday accused Chief Minister Mayawati of large-scale bungling and manipulation in palming off the mills to handpicked buyers.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has showered praise on the multiple and extravagant monuments and parks built by his bete noire -- Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati.
The Lokayukta has found Siddiqui, who is also Bahujan Samaj Party's general secretary and leader of the opposition in the state legislative council (Vidhan Parishad), prima facie guilty of amassing assets far disproportionate to his known and legitimate sources of income.
Accusing the Congress of playing gimmick after gimmick to woo dalits, Bahuijan Samaj Party supremo and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati on Friday predicted that the next game of the party would be to install a Dalit as the country's prime minister.
Speaking after dedicating over 15 memorials, including the statues of BSP founder Kanshi Ram along with those of her, Mayawati, who had recently made controversial remarks about Mahatma Gandhi, said 'the total costs incurred in building these monuments is much less than the total value of land at Rajghat', the memorial in Delhi for the Father of The Nation.
Hours after Mayawati inaugurated the Rs 685-crore memorial park in Noida, Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh on Friday accused the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister of squandering the hard earned money of the people of the country on the building of monuments, parks and her own statues.
Poll-bound Delhi will witness star-studded election rallies on Sunday, organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party's ally Shiromani Akali Dal, the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party, which are trying their best to ensure impressive turnouts.Congress president Sonia Gandhi will sound the election bugle from Mangolpuri in outer Delhi while Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and BSP chief Mayawati will address a rally in Trilokpuri in east Delhi.
She said poor people and farmers have been badly hit by high denomination rupee ban decision.
'Emboldened by the BJP victory, the upper castes feel they must assert themselves and regain dominance over the rural power structure.'
On her birthday, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati had an answer for each of her detractors: the Samjawadi Party, the Bhartiya Janata Party and the Congress. "If Congressmen have a problem with my celebrating my birthday, then we could also observe Congress president Sonia Gandhi's birthday as ghulami diwas (slavery day) - considering she is a person of foreign origin, for which she has always been targeted by other opposition parties", Mayawati said.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has told the Supreme Court that the prosecution of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati in a disproportionate assets case cannot be dropped as it has found cogent, credible and admissible evidence against her.
GMR evinces interest in the project.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati's focus on the state's deteriorating law and order led to the unceremonious exit of Director General of Police Vikram Singh late Tuesday night.
The inimitable 52-year old dalit leader who had already got two imposing statues of herself installed in Lucknow, has now decided to "gift" three more of her statues to the state capital.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati celebrated her 54th birthday on Friday, but without the trademark pomp, splendour and ostentatious celebrations. Instead, the CM surprised many by announcing welfare programmes for the poor and development schemes worth over Rs 7,300 crore for the state.Her earlier birthdays were celebrated as arthik sahyog diwas (fund raising day) when her partymen allegedly indulged in blatant extortion.
Congress leaders Digvijay Singh, Sachin Pilot and Rita Bahuguna Joshi were arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police at the Delhi border on Tuesday, when they were going towards state Chief Minister Mayawati's village to protest against the 'coercive' acquisition of land.The leaders were prevented at the Delhi-UP border by the UP police from going towards Badalpur, the village of Mayawati, where the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee has organised a 'Kisan Sangharsh Rally'.
The Lok Sabha was adjourned till 2 pm by Speaker Somnath Chatterjee after angry members of the Bahujan Samaj Party continued to interrupt Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi's speech during the trust vote debate on Tuesday.Gandhi, who started his speech by saying, " I am not going to speak as the leader of a political party but as an Indian," was repeatedly interrupted by noisy protests from the Opposition benches.
Bahujan Samaj Party president and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati will seek re-entry into the state's Upper House of Legislature.
With as many as 6,500 cops already sacked and many more to follow, UP Chief Minister Mayawati is going hammer and tongs to restore order and bring down the crime rate here.
Tall claims about her government's achievements and heavy bashing of the Congress-led UPA regime at the Centre remained Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's mainstay at a press meet in Lucknow on Thursday to mark completion of her three years in office.
Training her guns on the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati was extremely critical of President Pratibha Patil's address to the joint sitting of parliament in New Delhi on Thursday.
The official birthday celebrations would commence at 10 am with the inauguration of Ambedkar Auditorium, which would be followed by unveiling of plaques of various welfare schemes and development projects worth Rs 4000 crore by the chief minister.
"Whatever rights Dalits and backwards had is due to Bhim Rao Ambedkar and there is no contribution of the Nehru-Gandhi family," Mayawati said while addressing a gathering after inaugurating the 'Bhim Rao Ambedkar Samajik Parivartan Sthal' in Lucknow. She alleged that 'Congress and company' had conspired against Ambedkar so that he could not become a member of the Constituent Assembly.
Accusing Jairam of making a mountain out of a molehill, she has sought to draw the prime minister's attention to the minister's bid to generalise some information.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Saturday said that those seen at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's roadshow in Varanasi were "mere spectators" brought in from other states and districts in Uttar Pradesh where voting had already taken place.
Come January 15 and it is not unusual for Bahujan Samaj Party president and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati to show her paranoia invariably on account of the perennial accusation that the collection of money for her birthday 'gift', more often than not, culminates into extortion.
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.
In a desperate bid to give herself a clean-chit and clear herself of the charge that the engineer lost his life for refusing to concede the MLA's demand for money required to fill the coffers for Mayawati's birthday celebrations on January 15, she also hit out at the opposition for maligning her.
The Uttar Pradesh government has started proceedings to withdraw four cases against senior cabinet minister Mohammad Azam Khan. "The cases against Khan in 2007 appeared to be lodged with bad intentions. We have given applications in concerned courts to withdraw the cases," said Principal Secretary, Home, R M Srivastava.
Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati supported Centre's food security scheme but disapproved of its step to bring an ordinance, saying the measure should have been discussed in Parliament and passed with consensus.