The seat equation for the opposition alliance will become a matter of debate as UP Congress state president Ajay Rai mentioned that Congress is prepared for all 80 seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and is ready to contest on all 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh.
The decision to roll back the farm laws will go a long way in placating the community, which had backed the saffron party wholeheartedly in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls besides the 2017 assembly polls, and may queer the opposition's pitch for forging a social alliance of Jats and several smaller communities with Muslims, another numerically strong group in the region, against the BJP, its leaders hope.
The Rashtriya Lok Dal, with five members in the Lok Sabha, on Monday formally joined the United Progressive Alliance amid speculations that its chief Ajit Singh would be included in the Cabinet as the civil aviation minister. With the RLD joining the ruling coalition, its strength has gone up from 272 to 277 MPs. In the backdrop of speculations that Ajit Singh will be inducted into the Cabinet, Digvijay Singh was asked who will be the next civil aviation minister.
Slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state for the recent leak of a government competitive examination question paper and subsequent cancellation of the test, Chaudhary said because of such incidents youngsters are not getting appointments, and they have to migrate and work in other places.
As the first step, senior BJP Vice President and Convenor for the Lok Sabha polls, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, convened an hour long meeting with Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh, who is officially with the United National Progressive Alliance. RLD members have been sulking against a non-starter alliance stuck with Bahujan Samaj Party of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati.
"The turnout in the four Lok Sabha seats was low as compared to the 2019 polls but on the basis of feedback received from these constituencies, we are confident of winning these. People are fed up with false promises made by BJP leaders," he said.
Parties like the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, Mahaan Dal, and Janvadi Party-Socialist had distanced themselves from the SP after its defeat in the 2022 state assembly elections.
Senior Janata Dal-United leader Dhananjay Singh pitched for Opposition unity ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and said party workers in Uttar Pradesh want Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to contest the elections from the state's Phulpur constituency.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday termed his past alliances with arch rival Lalu Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal as a 'mistake' that he committed twice but was determined not to repeat again.
On the eve of the all-party meeting on Lokpal issue, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday night held consultations with United Progressive Alliance constituents after which a "broad consensus" was reported on the approach to the matter.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday appointed Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister Bhupendra Chaudhary as the party's chief in the state.
Congress and Rashtriya Lok Dal held a crucial meeting in New Delhi on Thursday night to finalise seat sharing arrangements for Uttar Pradesh assembly elections to be held early next year.
Both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha were adjourned till 2 pm after opposition members held protest in Parliament seeking a discussion on the issue.
With their high-decibel campaigns so far, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party may appear to be locked in a direct fight in Uttar Pradesh.
The Trinamool Congress on Friday made its foray into Uttar Pradesh by winning the Mat assembly bye-election. TMC candidate Shyam Sundar Sharma defeated his nearest rival Yogesh Chaudhary of the Rashtriya Lok Dal by 6,604 votes
Rashtriya Lok Dal chief and Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh on Monday described Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee as a "qualified" candidate for the post of President but said his views on others were equally positive.
Polling for the seventh phase of the Lok Sabha elections will take place on Saturday, June 1, 2024, with 57 seats going to the polls across 8 states.
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
What was the "locus standi" of Sonia Gandhi when she along with the then prime minister Manhoman Singh inaugurated legislative buildings in Manipur and Tamil Nadu, the Bharatiya Janata Party asked on Wednesday while countering the Congress's criticism over the inauguration of the new Parliament building by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The winter session of Lok Sabha began on a stormy note on Thursday with members of Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal creating uproar over the demand for hike in sugarcane prices leading to adjournment of the House. As soon as the obituary references were over, SP Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and RLD President Ajit Singh led their party members into the well of the House on the issue.
Manjhi's son Santosh Suman, who is a minister in the Nitish Kumar cabinet, made the statement a day after reports emerged that a seat-sharing formula has been arrived at in the National Democratic Alliance, and the HAM was likely to get only one of the state's 40 constituencies.
Even as the grand old party seeks to promote opposition unity ahead of the hustings next year, Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, however, would be conspicuous by her absence at the event at Sree Kanteerava Stadium.
Former Lok Janshakti Party president Chirag Paswan on Sunday asserted that every party wants him to be on its side, indicating he could tilt towards the one that offered a better bargain.
P Chidambaram and Rajeev Shukla of the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party's Sumitra Valmiki and Kavita Patidar, former Congress leader Kapil Sibal, Rashtriya Janata Dal's Misa Bharti and Jayant Chaudhary of the Rashtriya Lok Dal were among the 41 winners declared elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha.
Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh's son Jayant Chowdhary, Rashtriya Lok Dal leader, was on Monday issued a notice by Election Commission for allegedly violating the model code of conduct after he was caught on camera taking cash from a local leader during a poll meeting in Mathura.
In a jolt to Rashtriya Lok Dal, its Rajya Sabha member of Parliament Shahid Siddiqui and Anuradha Chowdhury, a former aide of party chief Ajit Singh, on Sunday joined the Samajwadi Party ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
The first list put out for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections has a total of 77 candidates with a criminal background. Topping this list are both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party who have 13 candidates each with serious criminal charges against them.
'JD-U wants to emerge as the single largest party in Bihar after the next assembly polls by contesting more seats than the BJP.'
Modi will stay in Patna overnight after the road show and address election meetings on May 13 in three Lok Sabha constituencies: Hajipur, Vaishali and Saran.
The 70-year-old leader attended a meeting of the floor leaders of NDA allies in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha in the Parliament chamber of Opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani on Thursday.
Newly appointed Union civil aviation minister and Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh on Sunday said his alliance with the Congress has now provided a "clear-cut alternative" to the people of Uttar Pradesh against the "oppressive" Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party government.
To repeated questions, the SP chief asserted that the Congress was 'very much in the alliance'.
Rajya Sabha MP Subhash Chandra on Tuesday filed his nomination from Rajasthan for the elections to the Upper House of Parliament as an Independent backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
A Muslim man used to work on the tandoor at my restaurant. But due to this issue, I asked him to leave. Because people can make an issue over it. We don't want such trouble here
While the last Lok Sabha elections saw Rahul Gandhi making his electoral debut, this time his cousin Varun Gandhi and several other 'Yuvrajs' appear ready to join the race with political stalwarts involved in hectic lobbying to ensure tickets for their wards.
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.
The Muslim card played heavily by the Congress party will be at test on Tuesday, when the 67-state assembly constituencies go to poll during Phase VI of the seven-phased Uttar Pradesh election.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former president M Venkiah Naidu on Thursday welcomed the Centre's decision to move a resolution for the creation of Telangana state in the Andhra Pradesh assembly, saying smaller states could be better administered.He added that the demand for Harit Pradesh in western Uttar Pradesha, raised by Rashtriya Lok Dal leader Chaudhary Ajit Singh, and Gorkhaland in West Bengal raised by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, will be strengthened.
The Congress would prefer to sit in the opposition in case it fell short of numbers in the election to the Uttar Pradesh assembly than supporting any other party, senior leader Digvijay Singh has said. He also raised questions over the possibility of Congress ally Rashtriya Lok Dal heading the government in case the combine gets majority.
Akhilesh Yadav, the 39-year-old son of Samajwadi Party strong man Mulayam Singh, is the man who has directed his party's campaign for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. The three-time member of Parliament from Kannauj is no stranger to electoral politics, but elections 2012 is at another level altogether.
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