The BJP, which won the Samajwadi Party strongholds of Rampur and Azamgarh in 2022 bypolls, hopes to wrest Mainpuri too.
After staying away from campaigning till now, Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Saturday addressed his first rally where he sought votes for brother Shivpal, saying the election is important for both of them.
Prolonged parleys with different power centers led to several hiccups before Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav could induct four new faces in his team in Lucknow on Thursday. The total tally of council of ministers is now 60.
Though today he is treading the path alone with no bigwig coming over for campaigning, the support of his elder brother Mulayam, who started his campaign with a rally for him, has re-established the bonding in the family.
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.
A lowdown on the who's who of the Yadav family.
Udayveer Singh, a Samajwadi Party MLC and one of the closest aides of Akhilesh Yadav, was on Saturday expelled from the party for "undignified" conduct days after he wrote to SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav suggesting him to elevate the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister as the party's national president.
A day after saying that there would have been no partition if Muhammad Ali Jinnah was made the first prime minister of the country, Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief Om Prakash Rajbhar blamed the RSS on Thursday for the historic event.
'If you interpret Akhilesh's statement, he is clearly saying Shivpal wants to become chief minister.'
What did Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav discuss at breakfast?
Singh, who was accused by the Akhilesh camp of trying to destroy the party, thanked SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, and his brother Shivpal Yadav, the state party chief, for standing by him and described Mulayam as the 'core' and 'father' of the Samajwadi Party.
After Harvard University's invitation to Chief Minister AKhilesh Yadav, his uncle and senior cabinet minister Shivpal Yadav has been invited by John Hopkins University, US, to deliver a lecture on flood control, official sources said in Lucknow.
The latest round may have gone against him, but the chief minister is planning his counter-attack.
While the results of the bypolls will not directly impact the composition of the 403-member state Assembly, the contest is being seen as a prestige fight between the BJP and opposition parties.
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).
Throwing a fresh challenge to Akhilesh Yadav, his sidelined uncle Shivpal on Tuesday announced that he will float a party after election results are out on March 11 and threatened to back "rebel" candidates.
In what may be seen as a message to the electorate that he has a say in the party, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Monday inducted three Cabinet and two Ministers of State (Independent Charge) ahead of next year's assembly elections in the state.
As the war of words between Union minister Beni Prasad Verma and SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav reached a crescendo, Congress sought to maintain an arm's length from the imbroglio, describing it as "personal issues" between two individuals.
Maurya resigned as the party's national general secretary on February 13, accusing the leadership of discriminating against him and not defending him over his controversial statements on the Ramcharitmanas and the Ayodhya temple consecration ceremony.
The announcements were made as per the compromise formula worked out by SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav who asserted that "There can be no division in the party."
Top Samajwadi Party leaders Shivpal Singh Yadav and Mohammad Azam Khan are among those likely to take oath along with Akhilesh Yadav when he is sworn in as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh on March 15.
The SP chief went to his father's residence to invite him to the October 5 national executive meeting, party MLC Sunil Singh Yadav said.
Uttar Pradesh Urban Development Minister Azam Khan, who shot into the spotlight for making a lot of hue and cry over his frisking by US security officials at Boston airport last week, is now off to South Africa,.
The postmortem report of the slain children has revealed that the assailant stabbed the elder brother 13 times and his sibling 11 times, officials said, adding injury marks have been found on the neck, chest and other parts of bodies of the two children.
The notable names in the BJP's first list include Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Varanasi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh from Lucknow, Hema Malini from Mathura, Ajay Mishra Teni from Kheri, Smriti Irani from Amethi, Lallu Singh from Faizabad (Ayodhya) and Mahendra Nath Pandey from Chandauli among others.
Yadav struck deals with the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress whenever needed to form or save the governments led by him in Uttar Pradesh.
Hours after Uttar Pradesh labour and employment minister Swami Prasad Maurya quit his post, his daughter and the Bharatiya Janata Party's Badaun MP Sanghamitra Maurya on Tuesday claimed her father has not joined any party and will reveal his strategy in a couple of days.
A day after Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Minister Shivpal Yadav said that no minister will be sacked without probe in the murder case of a journalist, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday asserted that his government would ensure no injustice is meted to anyone.
Triggering speculation in political circles, Akhilesh paid a sudden visit to the Raj Bhawan when he was in the middle of a meeting with party legislators and seniors to finalise details of his proposed 'rath yatra' from November 3.
The Rajya Sabha member was not keeping well for the past few days and was admitted to a private hospital in Lucknow, where he died around 7 pm.
The Samajwadi Party on Sunday declared that party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav's youngest daughter-in-law, Aparna Yadav, will contest the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls. S
Yadav took to social media and shared video clips and pictures of the deployment of security personnel, including police and rapid action force, with barricades near his house here, a stone's throw away from the Samajwadi Party headquarters.
Mulayam, Akhilesh shout at each other as SP supremo defends Shivpal, Amar Singh.
"There is no matbhed (difference) or manbhed (ill feelings) among our leaders," Yadav said.
Through the yatra the UP CM would try to send the message that he was in the driver's seat, notwithstanding all the hue and cry within the party.
Mulayam in his address to party workers once again trained his guns at cousin Ramgopal accusing him of conspiring to break the party.
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.
Ramgopal was expelled from the party for six years on October 23.
The Congress on Thursday virtually ruled out any grand alliance in poll bound Uttar Pradesh including with Samajwadi Party insisting that Rahul Gandhi wanted to set things right in the state which is in bad shape for past 27 years in non-Congress rule.
