Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have got a tough fight in Varanasi had Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra contested against him as Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) candidate, feel party workers from the temple town.
Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav on Friday blamed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati for the first information report registered against his man Friday Amar Singh and his bosom pal superstar Amitabh Bachchan in Kanpur on Thursday.
Rapping the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh for spending a whooping Rs 2,500 crore on memorials for Kanshiram and other Dalit leaders in Lucknow city, the Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would examine the constitutional validity of such memorials for political leaders, including ex-Prime Ministers, at taxpayers' money.
Under attack from opposition parties over the corruption issue and to present a clean image before voters, the Bahujan Samaj Party has denied tickets to nearly half of its sitting MLAs for the coming Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the plea of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, who had sought permission to undertake maintenance and certain other works at the controversial Rs 2,600-crore Ambedkar site in Lucknow. A bench of Justices H S Bedi and J M Panchal felt that there was 'no change of circumstances' to grant any such relief to the state government, which was earlier restrained by it from carrying out further activities at the site.
Yet another minister in the Uttar Pradesh government, on Monday, was sacked by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati. The UP CM has been on a firing spree since the past ten days. The number of sacked UP ministers went up to 11 on Monday.
Firing a fresh salvo at Mayawati, Rahul Gandhi today accused her of trying to mislead people by removing "corrupt ministers" when only a month was left to Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.
'The Congress in the past backed the demand, but will not support it now since the SP opposes any division of UP.'
The electoral battle in Varanasi, according to locals and political experts, is not about whether the PM will win for a third successive occasion, but if he will increase his share of the votes polled and his win margin.
Taking strong exception to the central government's decision to return the proposal for division of the state into four parts, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Tuesday flayed the United Progressive Alliance regime for what she termed as "total apathy" towards the issue.
The CVC on Monday told the SC that the evidence collected by the CBI was good enough to launch prosecution against former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati in the multi-crore Taj case.
Slamming the Congress manifesto as a "bundle of hollow promises", Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Wednesday accused the party of using the dalits as a votebank and trying to divide the community under a "planned conspiracy" by promising them sub-quota.
Additional District Judge of SC/ST court Ajay Kumar granted bail to Singh on two surety bonds of Rs 50,000 each, government counsel Chedi Lal Gupta said.
Instituting an inquiry commission to probe the corruption in Mayawati government and providing rice and wheat at Rs 3 and 5 per kg to the poor are among Bharatiya Janata Party's poll promises in its vision document for Uttar Pradesh.
Gearing up the party for 'Mission 2012' of coming to power in Uttar Pradesh, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday directed his lieutenants to take on Mayawati government on the issue of development while harping on mobilising youths to reach out to the common man.
At a hurriedly convened press conference, the former Uttar Pradesh said, "All deposits are as per norms and party rules and the money was collected before note ban. Should we have thrown it?"
Sitting Bahujan Samaj Party member of Parliament Dhananjay Singh was on Wednesday suspended from the party by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati for reportedly rendering support and meeting expelled Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh in jail.
'Hindutva will not win any elections. Hindutva as a political plank never works.'
Stung by the frontal attack launched by the top Congress leadership against her, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has hit out at both Congress President Sonia Gandhi and son Rahul.
The Supreme Court on Monday admitted petitions filed by Bahujan Samaj Party leaders, challenging the quashing of charges against Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and other top party leaders--in a case relating to an alleged assault on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati in Lucknow in 1995.
Banda chief judicial magistrate Bhagwan Das Gupta appointed Garima Singh, additional chief judicial magistrate (MP-MLA Court Banda) as the investigating officer in the case, the official said.
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.
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.
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 General Secretary Rahul Gandhi's disguised entry to the troubled spot in Greater Noida, where local farmers are on a warpath against 'inadequate compensation' for their acquired land, has put the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh on the back-foot.
Alarmed over the worsening flood situation in parts of the state, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati summoned her officials to take stock of the prevailing position in the 21 flood-affected districts of India's most populous state. Sounding an alert, the chief minister has issued directives to all concerned district magistrates to ensure timely relief to the 16.5 million flood-affected population.
Will the padyatra and mahapanchayat be stand-alone events or will they become part of a sustained and ongoing movement? That was the question on the minds of many in Uttar Pradesh. Neerja Chowdhury analyses the events and its effect on the upcoming Uttar Pradesh elections.
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.
The Bahujan Samaj Party has resisted giving up the bungalow on 13-A, Mall Avenue, saying that it had been converted into a memorial to Kanshi Ram in 2011, and the BSP leader occupied just a small portion of it.
The Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Sunday did not rule out the possibility of an early general election, but maintained that her party would continue to provide outside support to the UPA government despite its "anti-people" policies for keeping the communal forces at bay.
This came to light on the floor of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly where a supplementary budget of Rs 10,879 crore (Rs 108.79 billion) was tabled during the course of the on-going monsoon session in Lucknow on Tuesday.
"Mayawati had sent offers to me to join BSP and threatened that otherwise I will be left doing rounds of courts and made to languish in jail," he told reporters in Lucknow. The SP general secretary also alleged that independent MLA Mukhtar Ansari, accused in Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Krishnand Rai murder case, and BSP MP Akbar Ahmad Dampi conspired to kill him during the recently-held Lok Sabha bypolls in UP.
The meeting of opposition parties has been called by Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar to chalk out a joint strategy to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Stepping up her attack on Rahul Gandhi and the government at the Centre, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Saturday asked him to stop his "political drama" and repeated her threat of withdrawing support to the United Progressive Alliance coalition.
The ruling Samajwadi Party on Tuesday wrested from the Bahujan Samaj Party two assembly seats, including one represented by the BSP chief, Mayawati, before her resignation.
Governor Vishnukant Shastri accepted their resignation on the recommendation of Mayawati.
