Putting up its best-ever performance, Samajwadi Party on Tuesday stormed to power in Uttar Pradesh with a stunning majority routing Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Part, the third time a party captured power on its own in the state in two decades.
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.
Two days after Amar Singh resigned from all Samajwadi Party posts, a senior leader of the party has questioned the timing of the decision and said making public about SP's functioning was 'most immoral.'
Mishra's assertion came amid a growing perception that the BSP could again join hands with the saffron party if the 2022 assembly elections throw a hung House.
Other than promising several sops to Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav also declared that he would set up a high-level commission to investigate "financial irregularities" by the Mayawati government. Sharat Pradhan reports.
Riding an anti-incumbency wave, the Samajwadi Party on Tuesday stormed to power in Uttar Pradesh dislodging Mayawati while the ruling the Akali Dal-BJP combine sprang a surprise retaining power in Punjab and creating a history in the state by breaking a 46-year jinx.
"We have got more votes, but we will respect the mandate. We haven't got the required seats to form the government. We will not stake claim to form the government and I am submitting my resignation soon to the governor," Chouhan told reporters.
On the last day of Samajwadi Party's statewide agitation against the Mayawati government, party state president Akhilesh Yadav was arrested on Wednesday at the Amausi airport as soon as he landed in Lucknow from New Delhi.
In a bid to project a non-partisan face, Anna Hazare and his team on Sunday shot off a series of letters to leaders, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Rahul Gandhi and Bharatiya Janata Party President Nitin Gadkari, trying to put them on the mat on the Lokpal issue ahead of Assembly polls in five states.
Opposition parties questioned the law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh, where elections are due next year.
'Commentators have said that dealing with allies as equals will make Modi more sensitive.' 'Remember that the people Modi is dealing with are equally autocratic in their own lairs.' 'Further, Modi always has handy the threat of dissolving Parliament and calling for fresh polls.' 'Most of his own party, and certainly his allies and opponents having blown their budgets of efforts and resources in the just concluded elections, have no stomach for this.' 'They are all greatly looking forward to the loaves and fishes of office on offer.' 'That gives Modi an unbeatable advantage in any push-comes-to-shove situation,' explains Shreekant Sambrani.
Sibal, a prominent Opposition voice and a former Congress leader, also said that instead of a common minimum programme, the Opposition parties should talk about a 'new vision for India'.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Sunday alleged the law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh is deteriorating under Samajwadi Party rule and people will realise that a "bad government" has come to power in the state.
Counting began at 8 am under multi-tier security cover. At first, postal ballots will be counted and then EVMs opened.
If the party's members aren't sure what it stands for, see no path to wealth or power, and endure control by a dynasty, which, almighty as it is within the party, cannot get them the votes, they are likely to explore options, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Political observer Nazarwala, who made a spot-on prediction on Rediff.com of Mayawati's victory in the 2007 Uttar Pradesh assembly election, assesses Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's likely political resurrection.
The Supreme Court on Monday expressed surprise over former ministers getting security cover and questioned a former minister from Uttar Pradesh about why he was seeking police protection. "Can you get Y security just because you are an ex-minister? We are unable to understand," a bench of justices Gyan Sudha Misra and Madan B Lokur asked Ramveer Upadhyay, a minister in the previous Mayawati government, who was stripped of his security when the SP came to power.
It may still not be official, yet it is now absolutely clear that Akhilesh Yadav will be the next chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
Advani said he had spoken to Chief Minister Mayawati and she had written a letter to him explaining her stand.
Babbar was elected from Agra as its Lok Sabha MP twice -- in 1999 and 2004. However, following delimitation in 2008, the Lok Sabha seat became reserved for the scheduled castes.
If her mother anoints her as the Congress's chief ministerial candidate for the UP assembly election, it could be Game On! in Lucknow.
With its ties with Congress under strain, the Samajwadi Party will elicit views of partymen on withdrawing support from the United Progressive Alliance and chalk out agitational programme against the Mayawati government at its special national conference beginning in Agra on Tuesday.
The Congress on Thursday dubbed as an instance of "Mayawati's jungleraj" the criminal case filed by Uttar Pradesh police against Union Ministers Jitin Prasad and RPN Singh for allegedly assaulting Samajwadi Party workers during Rahul Gandhi's rally in Phulpur recently.
Apart from the two major parties (Cong: 98; BJP: 67) the Bahujan Samaj Party is leading in four seats, while the Janata Dal-United and the Communist Party of India-Marxist are ahead in one each.
Its allies Apna Dal (S) and Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party bagged nine seats and four seats, respectively, taking the total tally of the combine to 325.
Taking a cue from the massive victory of the Grand Alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday said such a tie-up was possible in the state where assembly elections are due in early 2017.
The first of the two-phase urban local body polls in Uttar Pradesh will take place on Thursday, a major poll battle in the politically crucial state ahead of the 2024 parliamentary elections.
The refusal of the apex court to concede an appeal by Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and his clan for reprieve in the disproportionate assets case has left the entire family high and dry.
Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh has blamed the party's loss in the Firozabad Lok Sabha bypoll on the overconfidence of its chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and said Yadav "behaved symbolically like Mayawati" while campaigning in the constituency.
Scindia also said that as far as talks for alliances are concerned, "like-minded parties should also think in a like-minded way".
Promising its allegiance to the Samajwadi Party and the Congress, the Shia Ulema-e-Hind on Thursday said the two parties have "struggled long" to help Muslims get their rights. Shia Ulema-e-Hind general secretary and Shia Personal Law Board convenor Maulana Ali Hussain Kumi also criticized Muslim leaders for making a beeline for Chief Minister Mayawati.
Addressing media persons in Varanasi, Sinha claimed that an industrialist was working out a deal between the two, but refused to identify him.
The government on Tuesday introduced a constitutional amendment bill reserving 33 per cent seats for women in the Lok Sabha and state assemblies, reviving a proposal pending for years and blending history, politics and societal imperatives on the first day in the new Parliament building.
Mayawati and Akhilesh, who contested the recent UP bypolls together, will campaign separately for their parties.
Leaders of 13 Opposition parties Sunday urged the Centre to launch a free mass vaccination drive across the country in view of the unprecedented surge in COVID-19 cases.
Members of the Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party on Thursday forced the adjournment of the Rajya Sabha for an hour, over the alleged inflammatory remarks made by Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee chief Bahuguna Joshi, against state Chief Minister Mayawati.Unrelenting BSP and SP members continued to raise the issue and the Left parties too supported them. As the din continued, Ansari adjourned the house till 12 pm.
Controversial Samajwadi Party member of Legislative Assembly Vijay Mishra, arrested in connection with bomb attack on Uttar Pradesh minister Nand Gopal Nandi, has alleged that two ministers in Mayawati government were plotting to get him murdered.
An official said the Prayagraj Development Authority is trying to identify the homes of the 37 people and action 'according to the law' will be taken if their building plans have not been approved.
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.
