The decision was announced by Ghulam Nabi Azad in New Delhi at a press briefing.
The occasion, which brought Yadav, a former chief minister, and the Bahujan Samaj Party supremo together was a meeting convened to finalise nominees for the State Human Rights Commission. The arch rivals had parted ways following the collapse of their coalition government in 1995 and have been bitter critics attacking each other and rarely acknowledging even the presence of the other at public functions.
"He is the only secular leader of our country who has worked with Mahatma Gandhi, Jai Prakash Narain and Ram Manohar Lohia, and he is the only leader who can save the nation and its people in the coming years," the SP's Assam unit general secretary Ratul Kumar Choudhury said.
Despite being arch detractors on the home turf of Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and Dara Singh Chauhan of the Bahujan Samaj Party will have to sit next to each other in the first row in the Lok Sabha.
The Centre is likely to take up with the Uttar Pradesh government the issue of "security breach" during Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi's visit to Allahabad as initial report suggested that police "failed" to control protesters who tried to stop the Special Protection Group protectee's car.
Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh on Thursday expressed sympathy for the beleaguered former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh who was arrested in the cash-for-vote case two days ago.
'Priyanka did draw huge crowds and eventually all of those ended up voting for the Samajwadi Party.' 'The voters today are smart enough to vote for the party which they know is going to win or they know this party will come second, but no way will they vote for a party which will come third or fourth.'
As Congress and Samajwadi Party finalise an electoral alliance in Uttar Pradesh ahead of Lok Sabha polls, it could be a difficult task for both of them to decide candidates on over half a dozen constituencies in which they had a tough contest in 2004 general elections.
With the all-party meetings called by Rajya Sabha Chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla producing no breakthrough to end the deadlock in Parliament, Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Pralhad Joshi accused opposition parties of repeatedly 'insulting' Dhankhar.
Dynasties rule: A look at some children who have won in Election 2009.
In an apparent reference to Salim Shervani and rebel SP Member of Parliament Shafiq-ur-Rehman Barq, SP general secretary Amar Singh said, "They have suddenly realised the virtue of opposing Kalyan Singh after being denied nomination for Lok Sabha elections."
The decision to field the party chief from two constituencies taken by the SP Parliamentary Board
Singh has been alleging that the state government had acquired land from farmers for the Reliance Energy power project at dirt cheap prices and is leading a campaign on the issue.
"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.
While Brijlal Khabri, former BSP MP from Jalaun, is UP Congress Committee chairman, former UP cabinet minister and Mayawati's once close confidant Naseemuddin Siddiqui heads the party's state media department. Completing the ex-BSP troika, Nakul Dubey, former UP cabinet minister in the Mayawati dispensation (2007-12), is one of the six UP Congress regional presidents. He is reckoned among the most active of the three.
The Samajwadi Party on Friday termed its decision to support the government at the Centre, during last year's trust vote over the India-United States civil nuclear agreement, as a 'historical blunder'. On whether the Congress has betrayed his party, he said, "I don't want to use such strong words against the Congress, but we are disenchanted with it".Singh said he had received a lot of flak within his party for supporting the United Progressive Allaince.
Ansari said the Muslim community is now shedding the 'illusion' created by opposition parties like the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress.
Samajwadi Party on Tuesday said that Kamal Farooqi has been expelled from the party and asked TV channels not to use the party's name while inviting him for debates.
Besides the SAD, the SP, the AIADMK and the TRS supported the idea; while the AAP, the TDP, the JD-S, the AIFB, the DMK, the TMC, the GFP and Left parties opposed it.
While his main attack was on eminent veteran lawyer Shanti Bhushan and his activist son Prashant Bhushan -- both of whom are members of the Lokpal Bill draft committee -- he also trained his guns on Karnataka Lokayukta and former Supreme Court Judge Santosh Hegde and Magsaysay awardee Arvind Kejriwal.
Mobs hurled bombs and pelted stones at each other as violence erupted in Kanpur after groups of people tried to force shopkeepers to down shutters over an alleged insult to Prophet Mohammed on a television show.
While Paswan and Singh were stopped at the Delhi-UP border, the LJP chief's younger brother and Lok Sabha member Ramchandra Paswan was taken into custody by the Uttar Pradesh Police. The leaders were going towards Greater Noida to disburse Rs two lakh as relief to the families of the victims of police firing last week.
The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday ordered the cancellation of the appointment of controversial Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission chairman Anil Yadav, who was accused of turning the state's highest recruitment body into a private fiefdom by handpicking largely Yadavs for all top jobs.
Psephologist Sandeep Shastri explains to Vicky Nanjappa/Rediff.com how Narendra Modi scripted the BJP's triumph.
Rampant corruption in the Uttar Pradesh police is an open secret. But how blatant it has become has been spelt out by none other than widely known ruling Samajwadi Party Member of Legislative Assembly Ravidas Mehrotra.
The girl and her family are alleged to be "untraceable" ever since they called on Rahul during one of his visit to his parliamentary constituency, Amethi on December 13, 2006.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday called for a "main front" of all non-BJP parties to take on the ruling alliance in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and asserted that the decision on its leadership can be taken later.
In the backdrop of the hype over Mulayam Singh Yadav attending UPA's anniversary dinner, his Samajwadi Party sought to downplay it and went on to attack the Centre over 2G and other scams.
Following a security breach during Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi's earlier visit to Uttar Pradesh, close to a hundred policemen and a vehicle armed against riots escorted him when he arrived in Lucknow on Tuesday on a two-day visit.The Centre has sought a report from the Uttar Pradesh government on the reported security breach of Rahul Gandhi during his recent visit to Allahabad.
Angry with the Congress for unilaterally announcing 24 candidates in Uttar Pradesh for the Lok Sabha polls, the Samajwadi Party on Friday declared that its alliance with that party was "broken".
Under fire from different quarters over the tie-up with Kalyan Singh, the Samajwadi Party today accused certain Congress leaders of "fanning" the issue, but made it clear that it would not break the alliance with the grand old party.
Uttar Pradesh Chief minister and Samajwadi Party boss Mulayam Singh Yadav on Saturday said noted actress Jaya Bachchan will be one his party candidates for the Rajya Sabha election.
Cracks were visible in the Opposition unity ahead of Tuesday's meeting convened by Congress to ramp up attack on demonetisation and alleged "personal corruption" of the prime minister, with Left parties and the Janata Dal-United unlikely to attend it.
A day after Kalyan Singh quit the Bharatiya Janata Party, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and general secretary Amar Singh met him amid indications that they may reach a political understanding ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
Asked about other SP leaders' "unhappiness" with Amar Singh, Shivpal said, "Taking everyone along makes an organisation stronger. There are all kinds of people in a party. One has to apply his mind also."
Didi embarks on her new mission: To unite the Opposition to take on Modi in the Lok Sabha elections of 2024, observes Payal Singh Mohanka.
613 candidates are in the fray on 54 seats, including those falling in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's parliamentary segment Varanasi.
During her campaigning, Priyanka halted at a village in the parliamentary constituency represented by her mother Sonia Gandhi and sat down with some snake charmers.
The Congress seems to have decisively shut its doors for Amar Singh, who was expelled by the Samajwadi Party on Tuesday along with Lok Sabha Member of Parliament Jaya Prada."The Congress is not a dustbin," shot back All India Congress Committee functionary Satyavrat Chaturvedi, when queried about the possibility of Singh joining Congress.Chaturvedi's hard-hitting comment isn't his first against Singh.
Comedian Raju Srivastava on Tuesday pointedly blamed the top Samajwadi Party leadership for his sudden decision to walk out of the contest for the prestigious Kanpur Lok Sabha seat.
