In the past five years, UP's Opposition remained passive and defensive against the BJP, a trend that does not augur well for the impending battle.
Tea and snacks like samosa and gulab jamun offered to guests by ministers have cost the Uttar Pradesh state exchequer nearly Rs 9 crore during four years of Akhilesh Yadav government.
Another meeting convened by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge at his residence in New Delhi on Wednesday with the floor leaders of the INDIA constituents in Parliament will, however, go ahead according to its schedule to formulate the opposition strategy for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Dharmendra Pratap Singh is 8 feet, 1 inch tall.
SP chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said Akhilesh will not participate in the yatra, nor will any other leader from the party.
'The BJP will use Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha to check Nitish Kumar.' 'They will not allow him to function freely as before.'
The June 23 meeting of opposition parties, called by Bihar Chief Minister and Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar, will see anti-BJP players chalk out a strategy for the Lok Sabha polls.
Dissident Congress leader Sachin Pilot began a 125-km foot march from Ajmer to Jaipur on Thursday, challenging Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and the party's top brass as assembly elections in Rajasthan approach.
The party also decided to field Narpat Singh Rajvi from Chittorgarh after its earlier decision to deny the five-term MLA, who is the son-in-law of its stalwart leader Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, renomination from his Vidhyadhar Nagar seat. This triggered a backlash from a section of party workers.
The Samajwadi Party is unwilling to cede ground to the BJP, especially in Amethi, since the Congress is too weak to counter the BJP's well-oiled election machinery.
Mulayam Singh Yadav complained of uneasiness and breathing difficulty.
Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma, state BJP president C P Joshi and Union minister Bhupendra Yadav welcomed them into the party at its state headquarters in Jaipur.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday night sacked a junior minister and changed the portfolios of 11 ministers including 9 of cabinet rank in a major reshuffle of his council of ministers.
The election management committee and the election manifesto committee were formed by the party's national president J P Nadda.
With the 2024 Lok Sabha elections less than eight months away, the SP is experimenting with yet another template of combining a soft Hindutva tenor with its time-tested Muslim-Yadav combination to reclaim its lost political capital vis-a-vis the BJP.
Akhilesh Yadav has instructed party MLAs to vote for opposition candidate Meira Kumar, SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav and his brother Shivpal Yadav might go in favour of NDA's nominee Ram Nath Kovind.
Opposition parties demanded that all elections in the future be held through ballot papers.
The governor accepted Kumar's resignation, and asked him to continue as caretaker CM till a new government is formed, they said.
The Congress, meanwhile, alleged that both the Samajwadi Party and the BJP are hand-in-glove with the criminals and were two sides of the same coin.
In his maiden foray in the state election, Yadav won from the Karhal assembly seat by a margin of 67,504 votes.
An inadvertent slip by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav while declaring Bollywood hit PK as tax free has not only earned him criticism on the social media but a social activist has also moved an application for lodging an FIR, accusing him of piracy.
Hindustani Awam Morcha chief Jitan Ram Manjhi on Friday alleged that "poisonous substances" were being mixed into the food served to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, by those "coveting his chair".
Union minister and the BJP's election in-charge for Rajasthan Pralhad Joshi, co-in-charge Nitin Patel, the party's in-charge for Rajasthan Arun Singh, state president C P Joshi, Union ministers Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Arjun Ram Meghwal and Kailash Chaudhary, Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly Rajendra Rathore, Deputy Leader of Opposition and former state president Satish Poonia and other leaders were present at the meeting, which is likely to continue till late, the sources said.
Though there was no official word from both the parties, the sources claimed that two Uttar Pradesh-based political outfits will contest 37 Lok Sabha seats each.
Rajsamand MP Diya Kumari and Jaipur Rural MP Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore are among the seven BJP parliamentarians who will contest the Rajasthan Assembly polls, according to the first list of 41 candidates issued by the party on Monday.
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.
The MLAs inducted into the Rajasthan cabinet are Meena, Madan Dilawar, Rathore, Gajendra Singh Khimsar, Babulal Kharadi, Jogaram Patel, Suresh Singh Rawat, Avinash Gehlot, Joraram Kumawat, Hemant Meena, Kanhaiya Lal Choudhary and Sumit Godara.
While Yadav began to tour different constituencies and address public meetings to mobilise the SP rank and file, he has concurrently started the tedious process of cobbling up an alliance of smaller outfits representing a mlange of castes and sub-castes, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.
The father of one of the rapists sentenced to death by a Delhi court for the brutal gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old paramedic in the national capital last December, on Friday said he would explore the option of appealing to a higher court.
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.
"We Ram-bhakts, today, as part of this programme, take this pledge that at the earliest, the Ram Mandir be constructed. Jai Shri Ram," the video showed him saying.
At the core of Nitish Kumar's decision was a cold political calculation. He assessed that the RJD's support base was unlikely to vote for JD-U candidates in the Lok Sabha polls. He was unsure of winning even half a dozen if he stayed with the RJD and the Congress.
The Lal Bahadur Shastri Bhawan, known as the secretariat annexe building which houses the chief minister's office as well as those of senior officials, is being painted saffron replacing the traditional white and blue.
Amid raging controversy over Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav's claim -- that those living in relief camps in Muzaffarnagar were political activists and not riot victims -- his party went into fire fighting mode on Wednesday, saying his statement had been twisted.
Former Indian Administrative Service officer A K Sharma was on Friday named a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate for the Uttar Pradesh legislative council polls a day after he joined the party, fuelling speculation that he will get a ministerial post.
The Samajwadi Party leadership in Uttar Pradesh came under attack on Sunday over holding the annual festival of song and dance at the Yadav family's native village at a time when hundreds of victims of Muzaffarnagar riots were living in difficult circumstances in relief camps.
In the pictures, Swati Singh is seen cutting a ribbon with a group of people, including some bureaucrats, standing alongside her.
With the Yogi Adityanath government taking credit for cracking down on criminals and making it an election issue, political parties are now having a rethink on aligning with those who have a criminal background but also enjoy influence in their areas.
Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav are all set to put up a show of strength by holding rallies in Agra and Bareilly respectively on Thursday.
A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party announced its first list of 41 candidates for the Rajasthan assembly polls, at least seven disappointed ticket aspirants -- or their supporters -- on Tuesday protested against the party.
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