Live coverage of a cultural extravaganza in Etawah in the ancestral Saifai village of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav has been prohibited by the district administration.
In a major jolt to the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party, its national general secretary Naresh Agarwal and two sitting legislators from Hardoi joined the Samajwadi Party on Friday. "I am resigning from the Rajya Sabha and the post of BSP national general secretary," Agarwal said while addressing a gathering at a function at the SP headquarters in Lucknow. Besides Naresh, his son Nitin Agarwal and Rajeshwari -- both BSP MLAs from Hardoi -- also joined the SP.
A delegation of opposition party leaders on Friday met the top brass of Election Commission to raise its concerns over poll code violations by the ruling party leaders, and also flagged concerns over delay in release of voter turnout figures for the first two phases of the polls.
The actress-turned-neta wants to "serve" and not contest any elections.
That will be the last pound of flesh Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh wish to extract for the support they are giving the dying Congress party. Fortuitously, the Congress too wants a similar outcome.
'Commentators have said that dealing with allies as equals will make Modi more sensitive.' 'Remember that the people Modi is dealing with are equally autocratic in their own lairs.' 'Further, Modi always has handy the threat of dissolving Parliament and calling for fresh polls.' 'Most of his own party, and certainly his allies and opponents having blown their budgets of efforts and resources in the just concluded elections, have no stomach for this.' 'They are all greatly looking forward to the loaves and fishes of office on offer.' 'That gives Modi an unbeatable advantage in any push-comes-to-shove situation,' explains Shreekant Sambrani.
The ministries of coal and environment and forests are currently in the temporary charge of the prime minister and all the indications are that the current power minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, might be moved to Maharashtra as chief minister, creating a vacancy, top sources in the government said.
Six Himachal Pradesh Congress MLAs who voted against party nominee Abhishek Manu Singhvi in the Rajya Sabha elections, along with three Independent lawmakers, have shifted to a hotel in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Uttarakhand amid an ongoing rebellion against Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.
Forty-two of the 102 Lok Sabha seats going to polls in the general election's first phase are constituencies that have three or more candidates facing criminal cases, according to a poll rights body.
While conditions have improved over the last decade in western UP, there are still unfulfilled needs.
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
People in these villages routinely encounter big cats that stray into their farms from the adjoining Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, a bustling habitat for the Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris).
'Do not conspire against us, don't betray us. They should tell us straight that they don't need Samajwadis'
When the Bharatiya Janata Party's Mukesh Dalal was declared elected unopposed to the Lok Sabha from Surat on Monday, he became the first candidate to achieve the feat from Gujarat since its formation 64 years ago though the erstwhile state of Saurashtra saw a similar instance in 1951.
Ahmad was elected to the assembly as an Independent in 1989, 1991, 1993 and on a Samajwadi Party ticket in 1996. He returned to the House in 2002 on an Apna Dal ticket. He was elected as an MP in 2004.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader Maneka Gandhi on Saturday indicated that her son Varun Gandhi's writings that were sometimes critical of the government may have cost him the party's Lok Sabha ticket from Pilibhit but asserted that he would do very well even without it.
The Bharatiya Janata Party suffered stunning losses in three Hindi heartland states, partial poll results showed Tuesday, forcing the party to rely on allies to form the government after a bitter and divisive election that was projected as a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity.
The suspense over whether Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will contest the polls from Amethi and Raebareli respectively continued.
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.
24 hours was all it took for the Congress to overturn its decision to boycott the TV debates on the exit poll results. Sudhir Bisht offers an explanation.
Asked how many seats INDIA bloc will get, Gandhi said, "Have you heard Sidhu Moose Wala's song '295'? So 295 (seats)."
The SP continued silence on last week's acquittal of 16 policemen, pointedly accused of the cold-blooded murder of 42 Muslims in Meerut
The states and union territories where the elections are being held in this phase are Assam (4), Bihar (5), Chhattisgarh (7), Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (2), Goa (2), Gujarat (25), Karnataka (14), Maharashtra (11), Madhya Pradesh (8), Uttar Pradesh (10) and West Bengal (4). The BJP has bagged the Surat seat unopposed.
Campaigning ended on Wednesday evening for 102 Lok Sabha seats across 21 states and Union territories which will go to polls in the first phase on April 19 with top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and the opposition Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) making a last-gasp effort to woo voters.
The BJP attacked Kejriwal after he refused to comment on the Maliwal "assault" matter during a press conference in Lucknow. He was flanked by Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav and AAP Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
The BJP cited the amendments to the Representation of People Act, 1951 and the relevant portions of the Reserve Bank of India Act and the Income Tax Act for not revealing its donors.
Samajwadi Party member of Parliament Shailendra Kumar, two members of Legislative Assembly including Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, and a member of Legislative Council were on Sunday arrested in Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh on charges of an attempt to murder after they allegedly threatened a candidate in local body elections, the police said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Tuesday poised to form the government for a third consecutive term with the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance getting a majority in the Lok Sabha, notwithstanding crushing losses in three Hindi heartland states after a bitterly fought election that was projected as a referendum on his popularity.
It will be in Modi's interest to reinvent his party, read the writing on the wall that voters wrote, and move ahead. He has little choice now. The country is watching, asserts Ramesh Menon.
The fraud was exposed by none other than his estranged wife who had already lodged a complaint against Majhi, who had once even managed to get a ministerial berth.
The I-T probe is related to some trusts run by Khan and his family members, the sources said.
If the Congress reached 90, it would have a pretty good chance of holding the BJP below the 272 mark. A hundred seats will rock national politics, argues Shekhar Gupta.
Raising slogans of 'Inquilab Zindabad' and 'Kejriwal Zindabad', Aam Aadmi Party workers and leaders reached the area's metro station in groups, with the party calling for a march to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's residence on Lok Kalyan Marg for a 'gherao'.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and his convoy will spend the night on a farm in Bhadohi as the district administration has denied permission for his stay at a government college citing a police recruitment exam, a party member said on Thursday.
"Word of the day! Definition of *snollygoster* US dialect: a shrewd, unprincipled politician. First Known Use: 1845. Most recent use: 26/7/17," Tharoor had tweeted in 2017.
Besides Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow), Minister of Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), those in the fray are Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj) and Minister of State of Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).
Among the bigwigs are Union ministers Amit Shah (Gandhinagar), Jyotiraditya Scindia (Guna), Mansukh Mandaviya (Porbandar), Parshottam Rupala (Rajkot), Pralhad Joshi (Dharwad) and SP Singh Baghel (Agra).
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