Claiming that his party could come to power at the Centre, Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav on Saturday said the present political equations indicate that both Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party would not be able to get a majority in the 2014 general election.
The Samajwadi Party said those facing corruption charges have been inducted into the Union Council of Ministers.
Accusing the Congress party of doublespeak, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday demanded that the party either sack general secretary Digvijaya Singh or take action against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P Chidambaram on the Batla House encounter case.
The Bahujan Samaj Party on Thursday claimed that Election Commission decision of covering statues of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati and party symbol elephant is one-sided and unjustified and was a violation of Article 14 of the constitution.
Several Muslim organisations on Wednesday demanded dismissal of Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh and imposition of President's rule in the state, saying Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has failed to contain communal violence in Muzaffarnagar and surrounding areas.
Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, 11 parties on Tuesday got together with a vow to defeat Congress-led United Progressive Alliances and prevent the Bharatiya Janata Party from coming to power by presenting themselves as an alternative to them.
While the Congress has not lost all hopes on ties with Trinamool Congress which announced the decision to withdraw from UPA, other parties like Samajwadi Party and Janata Dal-United blamed the government for putting itself in an embarrassing position.
Reflecting the growing bonhomie between the two parties, Congress has decided not to field any candidate against Uttar Pradesh Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple Yadav, the Samajwadi Party candidate in the Kannauj Lok Sabha by-election.
Dimple Yadav, wife of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, will contest the Kannauj Lok Sabha by-election as a Samajwadi Party candidate. "As per the wish of the party workers, the central parliamentary board of the party has decided that Dimple Yadav will contest the by-election for Kannauj seat," SP national general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav told reporters. Akhilesh Yadav had contested from the Firozabad and Kannauj seat in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls.
The voting will begin at 7 am and end at 5 pm after the electioneering came to an end on Saturday, 48 hours before the electorate begin casting their votes.
Communist Party of India - Marxist general secretary Prakash Karat on Friday met Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and the two leaders are understood have discussed the pros and cons of probable candidates for the upcoming Presidential election.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party of talking about terrorism during the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections while diverting attention from the 'central discourse' on unemployment, inflation, empowering women and helping small businesses and farmers.
"Nobody is sympathising with Atiq Ahmad because a criminal should be punished. But anyone who will see this video will question if we are a democracy. Every criminal has the right to be heard in court and be convicted there. But you can see they were killed in police custody in the open," he said.
"Changes should be visible in six months and the manifesto should be implemented within a year as there is no guarantee when Lok Sabha elections are announced after that," Mulayam said, addressing party leaders and workers at a function to mark the 102nd anniversary of Dr Ram Manohar Lohia in Lucknow.
Opposition parties on Sunday lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party after Nationalist Congress Party leader Ajit Pawar and eight others were inducted into the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government, saying the ruling party's 'washing machine' has resumed its operation to clean tainted leaders and it was an 'ED-facilitated power grab'.
Sixteen top officials of the Uttar Pradesh Construction Corporation were suspended by the Samajwadi Party-led state government for their alleged involvement in the multi-crore scam in the construction of the Kanshi Ram Memorial during Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati's regime. The suspended officials include four general managers and a dozen project managers of the Uttar Pradesh Nirman Nigam.
Setting aside their bitterness, both within and outside Parliament, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi shook hands at a function to felicitate NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, who turned 75 on Thursday.
A court in Varanasi on Monday convicted gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari in the murder of Congress leader Awadhesh Rai more than 30 years ago.
Can you imagine that in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh assembly election Bharitya Janta Party can get almost 24 per cent votes to come second in the four-cornered contest between ruling Bahujan Samaj Party, Samajwadi Party, Congress and BJP?
Senior leaders of the Samajwadi Party, which had on January 8 given a five-day ultimatum to the United Progressive Alliance government to act against Pakistan, on Wednesday met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and general secretary Amar Singh said they discussed ways to work together and keep the communal Bharatiya Janata Party from coming to power after the coming general election.
The Constitution (116th Amendment) Bill was defeated in the Lok Sabha by a determined Opposition, helped by the absence of parties supporting the government from outside like the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal
Reacting to Yadav's statement that he wanted her to become the prime minister and that the SP had forged an alliance with the BSP for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls for this, Mayawati, in a tweet in Hindi, said, 'When the SP chief could not fulfil his own dream of becoming the chief minister (of Uttar Pradesh) even after securing the votes of Muslims and Yadavs and forming an alliance with several parties, how can he fulfil the dream of others to become the prime minister.'
Why weren't the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Kerala, Maharashtra and Telangana -- all of which have borders with Karnataka -- not invited to Saturday's swearing-in ceremony, asks Shyam G Menon.
In an editorial in its mouthpiece Saamana, the party said Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Gopalkrishna Gandhi and National Conference's Farooq Abdullah, the "regular names that crop up during the presidential polls", don't have the personality or heft to make it a tightly-contested battle.
Samajwadi Party Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav on Sunday accepted the resignation of his close associate Amar Singh from all party posts including that of general secretary and the parliamentary board.
At the meeting attended by 33 parties, the prime minister said suggestions from public representatives, especially from the Opposition, are valuable as they make the discussion rich.
Terming Amar Singh and Jaya Prada as 'intruders,' Samajwadi Party today expelled them from the party on grounds of indulging in anti-party activities and denting its socialist image.
Yadav had contested and won from Mainpuri in the just concluded parliamentary polls.
In both of these Hindi heartland states, the straight contest between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress.
Meanwhile, the Congress said that that it is ready to go it alone in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha election.
Citing the Samajwadi Party's electoral victory in Uttar Pradesh, the Communist Party of India Marxist on Saturday revived the idea of a Third Front, pitching for the unity of Left and democratic forces to give the people another alternative to the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat said people wanted an alternative to the Congress and the BJP as both of them had been defeated in the UP elections.
The inauguration new parliament building will take place in two phases.
Amid murmurs of formation of a third front, Samajwadi Party and the Communist Party of India-Marxist on Tuesday sought to bridge the gap between the two following their bitter parting of ways with the SP inviting top Left leaders for the swearing-in of Akhilesh Yadav as Uttar Pradesh chief minister.
For the Congress to be taken seriously, it has to convince those around it that it could actually double its Lok Sabha seat share from the existing 52, and vote-share by a third more from the stagnating 20 per cent in 2014 and 2019, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav's craving to get the country's top job once again came to the fore on Tuesday, when prominent Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan openly called upon madrasas of the state to strive towards making the Samajwadi Party supremo the next prime minister.
The Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh on Monday renamed eight districts, which had been earlier named by Mayawati, leaving the Bahujan Samaj Party supremo fuming. The decision to change the names was taken at a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
The Congress and the Samajwadi party continued their search for an agreement on sharing of seats from Uttar Pradesh in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls at a meeting between their top leaders on Sunday, but the gap between Congress demand for 25 seats and SP's offer of 15 remained unbridged.
Rahul Gandhi being assigned a major role in connection with next Lok Sabha election has made the Opposition talk of Congress advancing the polls to cut losses, a contention vehemently denied by the party and the government.
BJP's central leadership has thrown its weight behind Yogi Adityanath, putting a stop to murmurs against the state government months ahead of the assembly polls.
Samajwadi Party leader Tej Narayan Pandey on Sunday accused Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust of committing corruption in a land deal and sought a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the matter.
