The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is headed for a big win in the Uttar Pradesh legislative council polls, bagging Barabanki and Ayodhya and leading in several other places. But it lost Varanasi to an Independent candidate.
While taking strong exception to the arrest and humiliation of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade, Uttar Pradesh's all powerful Samajwadi Party leader and Urban Development Minister Azam Khan has offered her a party ticket to contest the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath attributed the impressive show by his party to the "alert voters" who he said rejected the 'mahagathbandhan' (grand alliance) of opposition parties.
The speaker said members should be careful in uttering words and maintain decorum so that no such incident takes place in the future.
Even as Priyanka is gaining traction among the electorate and the media, her counterpart for the western UP region, Jyotiraditya Scindia, has been low key and perceptibly missing from the 'heat and dust' of elections in UP, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.
The actress-turned-neta wants to "serve" and not contest any elections.
'My feeling is that these parties will not learn their lesson despite their electoral drubbing. They cannot put forward a leader. They have no record of improving their constituents' lives by providing basic services. All they offer is their "'secularism",' says T V R Shenoy.
The Congress party's first list of 194 Lok Sabha candidates released on Saturday night has no major surprises. Anita Katyal reports
The Congress released its second list of 71 candidates on Tuesday night. It is an interesting list, considering the names which have been taken on and the ones which were dropped. Renu Mittal reports
The Election Commission on Wednesday censured Narendra Modi's close aide Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Minister Azam Khan for making controversial remarks during campaigning.
Political battles were decided not in boxing rings but in the court of the people, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Amit Shah said in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh on Sunday, responding to Samajwadi Party's counter to Narendra Modi's "56 inch chest" remarks.
True, Azam Khan is being targeted rather disproportionately and also because of his Muslim identity. That must be protested and resisted. But to say that he is a big messiah, and his profit-making educational enterprise is an issue concerning all Muslims of India, is absolutely unjustified, assert Mohammad Sajjad and Md Mohammad Zeeshan Ahmad.
Against the backdrop of the opposition closing ranks on the CAA issue and the BJP faring poorly in several state elections recently, the 2022 electoral battle is unlikely to be a cakewalk for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.
The Congress wants the 28 seats it won in 2012 plus 20 seats where the party was runner-up plus 57 seats where it was ahead of the SP in 2012.
'The spread of barbarity in Muzaffarnagar's villages makes administrative complicity so very evident that your government is rightly alleged to be imitating what the Modi-led administration did in Gujarat in 2002,' Mohammad Sajjad tells UP Minister Azam Khan.
India's secular democracy remains mortgaged to rabid communal politics. Quite clearly, the bloodshed by the religious communities is absolutely political. Even non-BJP political formations have their own Narendra Modis, says Mohammad Sajjad.
And it's that time of the year again. The time for accolades, the time for awards. But these are the awards you would rather not be the recipient. We are of course giving these awards to celebrate the most awesome or awful achievements a person could attain, and of course, these are being given out in absentia.
'Although Narendra Modi had no direct participation in the Ayodhya agitation, he would not have been in the dominant position he is now had it not been for the Ram Janambhoomi agitation.'
Around 30,000 personnel have been deputed for poll duty as the state decides its fate today.
Muslims constitute 20% of UP's electorate. Currently, Muslim voters are divided between Akhilesh's SP and Mayawati's BSP. What will tilt the balance? Can Muslims back the winning party? Mohammad Sajjad explains the mysteries of UP's Muslim politics.
Former Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal was re-nominated by Congress from Chandigarh on Thursday brushing aside the "taint" argument as it released the second list of 71 candidates who include film star Nagma in Meerut and Youth Congress chief Rajeevv Satav from Hingoli.
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.
The Lok Sabha election will be held in 7 phases, beginning on April 11, 2019 and ending on May 19, 2019.
The rift between Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and his party colleague Azam Khan, who also happens to be a prominent minister in the state cabinet, appears to be widening.
"One was 'AP' and the other was 'Fam'. 'AP' stands for Ahmed Patel and 'Fam' stands for family. Have you heard of Ahmed Patel? Which family is he close to?" Modi asked the crowd at a rally in Dehradun.
This phase of voting was crucial for the state's ruling Samajwadi Party and main opposition Bahujan Samaj Party.
'Compared to other social groups, managing the Muslim constituency has always been easier for the secularists.' 'Just some symbolic measures and window-dressing would keep the Muslim flock together.' 'Having been betrayed by all the supposedly 'secular' political parties, Muslims should turn into citizens without any ascriptive identity marks,'says Mohammad Sajjad.
The Baharatiya Janata Party condemned Uttar Pradesh government's crackdown against VHP yatra from Ayodhya and accused it of playing vote bank politics while Samjwadi Party said it won't let the state "become another Gujarat" or a repeat of Dec 6, 1992, when the Babri mosque was demolished.
'It is the regional parties and their leaders who are the ones we have to watch.'
Those who have a long-range mission of true nation-building will pay close attention to World Bank's new action plan for fairness in all matters of land use, says Rajni Bakshi.
After being deserted by people whose battles he fought, Amar Singh is going to have another go at politics, says Aditi Phadnis
As the dust finally settles on the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections 2019 and Bharatiya Janata Party along with its NDA allies emerges as the clear winner, here is a list of who won in each of the 7 phases of elections.
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