Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav's daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah told Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and workers here on Friday that they must focus on polling booths if they want the party to win the coming assembly polls.
A total of 15 crore people are benefiting from the programme in the state, Adityanath said.
'The Opposition thinks since the ruling party is following Savarkar's Hindutva philosophy, they want to regain their lost political mileage (by attacking Savarkar).' 'By doing so, they think they will get their power back.'
For the first time, non-upper castes are in a majority in the board, as the party continues with its outreach to traditionally weaker and backward sections of society.
Many factors like women, caste combination, education qualification, age and performance of the legislators will be taken into consideration before the formation of the Yogi government 2.0, sources said on Thursday. Several rounds of meetings have taken place within the party after the poll results came out on March 10.
Ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday launched a specially made 'Samajwadi perfume,' hoping to spread the 'scent of socialism' in the state.
The panchayat polls or those for district panchayat chiefs are not held on a party symbol but candidates enjoy the tacit support of various parties.
'I was feeling so suffocated under Yogiji's rule.'
The BJP leader linked his claim to the beginning of construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya following a Supreme Court judgment, and the abrogation of special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution.
Consolidating its position, the Bharatiya Janata Party wrested high-profile Rampur and Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh from the Samajwadi Party and won three assembly seats, including that of Chief Minister Manik Saha, in Tripura in by-election results announced on Sunday.
The percentage was 63.14 per cent in Hathras, 61.89 per cent in Firozabad, 63.04 per cent in Kasganj, 65.7 per cent in Etah, 61.51 per cent in Mainpuri, 59.13 per cent in Farrukhabad, 61.93 per cent in Kannauj and 58.35 per cent in Etawah.
The Union home minister also asserted that the 2022 Uttar Pradesh polls will lay the foundation for the BJP's victory in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday sought to defend his widely criticised statement equating Muhammad Ali Jinnah with Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Jawaharlal Nehru and saying they helped India get freedom even as an Uttar Pradesh minister suggested a narco test for him for 'glorifying' the founder of Pakistan.
The meeting came after a letter of Khatik to Union Home Minister Amit Shah offering to quit surfaced on social media.
'Unlike the Congress, the BJP is not a party that merely goes by family connections.' 'Scindia's future will depend on what he brings to the BJP table.' 'The BJP is also a party where vertical growth is mostly factored by RSS preferences.' 'To secure confidence of the saffron brotherhood, Scindia will have to be his grandmother's grandson and not his father's son,' notes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
The monk-turned politician will take the reins of the most populous state for a second time in a row after completing his full five-year term.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's Uttar Pradesh vice president Arvind Kumar Sharma will be reaching out to residents of western UP with public meetings in Noida, Greater Noida and Bulandshahr from Friday.
Not all change is good, but this one is, applauds Shekhar Gupta.
The two-time CM, who had also been the Rajasthan Governor, died at a Lucknow hospital on Saturday after prolonged illness.
'We will be hoisting the tiranga, but this kind of celebration is uncalled for when the farmers in this country are dying by suicides, their families are ravaged by poverty and farmers are not enjoying any freedom.'
'If there is any possibility, then the BJP has to accept our conditions. There should be caste census in the country, the report of the social justice committee should be implemented, the CM should be from backward caste and also the poor must be provided a uniform, mandatory and free education as well as free medical treatment.'
Informing about his decision, Maurya said in a tweet in Hindi, 'Due to the attitude of gross neglect towards Dalits, backwards, farmers, unemployed youth and small and medium-sized traders, I am resigning from the council of ministers of Yogi (Adityanath) of UP.'
Former Indian Administrative Service officer A K Sharma was on Friday named a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate for the Uttar Pradesh legislative council polls a day after he joined the party, fuelling speculation that he will get a ministerial post.
Sources said BJP working president J P Nadda called up Singh to inform him of the party's decision and asked him to make an announcement.
'Sharma was sent to Lucknow for a purpose, but he has merely been adjusted in the party hierarchy because the chief minister refused to induct him into his government. He was secretary in the Central government and was holding a much higher office than the state ruling party's vice-president' Virendra Singh Rawat reports.
Will Malik's worldview, shaped by his years with the socialists, Charan Singh, the Congress and V P Singh, help him govern the troubled state? Or would his rule have the imprint of the party he joined in the latter years of his chequered political career?
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday accused Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of getting his telephones tapped and listening to the conversation every evening.
Besides in-charges, the party has also named co-incharges for several states, a BJP statement said.
For Prime Minister Narendra Modi to dig up the perceived past of the DMK rival, now under a new leader in M K Stalin, may not gel with the voters, both old and new. If they are still going to vote for the AIADMK-BJP combine, it will be for entirely different reasons, and despite Modi's poll speeches, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Brand Kejriwal-AAP have a long way to go even if they win another Delhi election...'
'It is a force nobody can ignore, not even Mr Modi, because it will keep punching above its weight,' notes Shekhar Gupta.
Keshav Prasad Maurya's election from Sirathu in Kaushambi will be among the keenly watched contests in UP. If he and the BJP win, will he be luckier this time?
'These naval sailors should have been given due respect as freedom fighters.' 'February 18, 1946 should be as important as January 26 because that date changed everything.'
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday urged dialogue between the protesting farmers and the Centre while addressing a meeting of Bharatiya Janata Party office-bearers, during which he also invoked the border clashes with China and the construction of the Ram temple.
Akhilesh and his father Mulayam attended the swearing-in ceremony of Yogi Adityanath, a move that surprised one and all.
The Madhya Pradesh Assembly on Monday passed a bill that penalises religious conversion through marriage or any other fraudulent means and provides for a prison sentence of up to 10 years.
Ashok Chowdhury, a Dalit politics expert said, "BJP had impressed the Dalits in the 2014, 2017 and 2019 elections, but it's difficiult to retain them now".
'The emphasis is on nationalism, which the party apparently feels will have greater resonance than one on religious identity which may have lost some of its appeal in recent years.'
His remarks at the Maharajganj rally come against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine from where India is trying evacuate thousands of its citizens. Modi, however, did not specifically mention the crisis.
'It is from her that present-day political stalwarts continue to draw lessons on testing the limits of Constitutional democracy, and whose slogans even her party's staunchest opponents imitate even after over 30 years of her death,' says Veenu Sandhu.
