Yadav accused the K Chandrasekhar Rao government in the state of floating the gimmick of reservation for minorities while doing no good for any section of society.
The parties which gave chief ministers and sent scores of MPs to Parliament, drew a blank this time.
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.
The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister is scheduled to attend a meeting of PDA "Picchda (backward classes), Dalit and Alpsankhyak (minorities)" at the party office in Lucknow and has no plans to go anywhere till now
It is unusual in democratic countries two decades into the 21st century for laws to become regressive instead of progressive. But that is clearly what is happening in India today and more of this is ahead, asserts Aakar Patel.
'The 16th and 17th Lok Sabha and the 2017 assembly election show that Dalits and OBCs are moving towards the BJP.'
In the morning, he offered prayers at the Dashashwamedh Ghat and the Kaal Bhairav temple in Varanasi.
The political fight for the Dalits' cause escalated on Thursday with Congress president Rahul Gandhi accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of having an "anti-Dalit" mindset and the Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah alleging the opposition party had a legacy of insulting the community.
Telangana BJP MLA Raja Singh has defended the cow vigilants in the backdrop of flogging of Dalits in Gujarat.
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.
This is Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya's maiden Lok Sabha election, but political experts and voters feel he can easily win Porbandar seat in his home state Gujarat, despite the electorate facing some key issues like unemployment.
For the BJP, the RSS' organisational heft is a prized asset, considering the slew of elections it faces this year, ahead of the Lok Sabha election in 2024.
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.
As Election 2024 hurtles towards result day in a medley of mangalsutra, mujra, mutton, machli and other barbs, these may sound like character names from Hindi comics of yore. Instead, these are the mocking, sometimes vicious monikers given by political rivals to each other.
Less than half the ministers in Team Yogi are not long-term BJP members. Many old-timers have been dropped.
Akhilesh Yadav said those who are looking for "profit" in the situation will leave.
Bedlam erupted in the House for a few minutes and continued till all BJP members staged a walkout in protest.
Congress president M Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday likened Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a poisonous snake, drawing strong rebuke from the Bharatiya Janata Party which said 'hate is coming out' with such comments and sought an apology from the veteran leader.
For the first time in his political career, he failed to carry his party to even a working majority -- and again, for the first time in his career, he finds himself in a situation where he cannot rule by dictatorial fiat, points out Prem Panicker.
A Division Bench headed by Chief Justice K Vinod Chandran passed the order on a bunch of petitions which had opposed the legislations brought by the Nitish Kumar government in November 2023.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com does a deep dive into four elections when Narendra Modi resorted to anti-Muslim fervour and points out that Hindu-Muslim politics does not necessarily mean victory for the BJP.
The mob attacked Vijay and the Dalit leaders apparently for visiting the temple where entrance of persons belonging to backward castes is prohibited.
Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister and former state BJP president Keshav Prasad Maurya had also dropped a hint in a recent tweet, saying Yaduvanshi (Yadavs), Ravidasiyo (Jatavs) and Pasmanda Muslims will be brought closer to the BJP so that the lotus 'blossoms' in every booth in UP.
Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his reported remarks that BJP needs to bring dalits into its fold as nationalists were already with the party, wondering whether he did not consider dalits and backwards as nationalists.
Where do Vijay and his TVK expect to get their votes from? Vijay has a huge fan following among women, but will they automatically become his voters like they had done for MGR's AIADMK, asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Congress on Sunday hit back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his 'redistribution of wealth' remarks targeting the party, saying after facing 'disappointment' in the first phase of Lok Sabha polls, the PM has now resorted to 'lies' and 'hate speech' to divert people from the real issues.
Sniping at the BJP senior leadership has reached a new high in Karnataka. For the moment, there is a truce, but the party knows the damage it could do ahead of the polls.
Taking the matter seriously, the Bharatiya Janata Party government on Wednesday night transferred collector S Vishwnathan, SP Nayak and IG Rajababu Singh.
"The nakli Shiv Sena wants to bury me alive. They abuse me in such a way that it will be liked by their favourite vote bank," Modi said.
The special session is set to commence on a stormy note on account of Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha's stout refusal to resign despite the new ruling dispensation's motion of no-confidence against him.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday claimed that the Congress and Samajwadi Party will run a bulldozer over the Ram temple if elected to power, and asked them to take 'tuition' from Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath 'where to run bulldozers'.
Congress says RSS was working for "Dalit-mukt Bharat" which was "sponsored" by BJP to polarise communities ahead of next year's Gujarat polls.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday dubbed the electoral bonds as the 'world's biggest extortion scheme' and alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the 'champion of corruption'.
The BJP campaign highlighted Yogi's persona as a tough-as-nails leader and an incorruptible man with no nest to feather; Modi's charisma which was turned on full blast in the penultimate phases; Amit Shah's ground work; a well-oiled party organisation, and the RSS's back-up.
'There might be some internal tussles that can be expected between any two persons in any party.' 'But I do not see any tussle which might weaken the possibility of dictatorship.'
The BJP leadership knows it can't boast of governance in the state as the Bommai government has little to show. So, the game plan is to project Modi, who will reiterate how important it is for a state to have the same party ruling in power at the Centre, observes Ramesh Menon.
This will pave the way for emergence of 24,000 new panchayat-level leaders in Telangana, he said.
'The Congress is trying to reinvent itself -- the caste census demand, OBC emphasis, the anti-corporate thrust, especially on Adani etc -- all this is not standard Congress strategy.'
The BJP has played the social engineering card in Rajasthan with an eye on the Lok Sabha election where the party will try and retain all the 25 seats that it had won in the 2014 and 2019 elections.
Even as the two parties appeared confident that they have reached out to every voter and publicised their new symbols, experts suggested varying impact of the split and the symbols on the vote bank.
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