Senior state leaders of the two parties pointed to propping up of the "new set of leaders not having much political stature" and lack of communication for the failure to reconcile differences.
This is the first reshuffle in the Council of Ministers by Prime Minister Modi since he assumed charge for a second term in May 2019.
Her name figures among the 40 star campaigners that the Congress has finalised and forwarded to the Election Commission on Tuesday for the first phase of Uttar Pradesh polls.
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.
"The government is afraid of oath ceremony of a student leader and is stopping me at the airport to prevent me from visiting Allahabad," the SP chief claimed.
The TMC, fresh from its resounding victory in West Bengal, is renewing efforts to mark its presence in the country's most populous state as well as politically crucial elections before the Lok Sabha battle in 2024, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.
Mulayam Singh and Mayawati fell out after their ruling coalition in Uttar Pradesh crashed in 1995, two years after they came together along with smaller parties to keep the Bharatiya Janata Party out of power.
Polling will be held in all 13 seats in Punjab and an equal number of seats in Uttar Pradesh, nine in West Bengal, eight seats each in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, four in Himachal Pradesh, three in Jharkhand and the lone seat Chandigarh.
Before filing her nomination papers at the Collectorate Rae Bareli, the UPA chairperson held a roadshow and offered puja at the Congress central office.
The parties seem to have forgotten their two decade-old antagonism for a 'political revolution' which they hope would 'last long'.
Even if the BJP gets 60, 70, or even 100 per cent of the votes in the seats where it scored more than 50 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, these will still add up to only 224 seats, argues Shekhar Gupta.
The 2014 Lok Sabha election saw the Bharatiya Janata Party led by Narendra Modi storm to power at the Centre with a "triple century", giving the National Democratic Alliance an unexpected 336 seats in the Lok Sabha .
UP and Bihar contributed 105 seats to the BJP's tally in 2014. It has now lost 8 Lok Sabha by-polls in the last four years, including three successive losses in UP and two seats in Rajasthan.
Modi wants the BJP to gets an additional 10% of the vote share from what it won in 2019. Plans are afoot to get new faces to replace MPs with poor chances of winning. Sources say more than 100 MPs are like to be axed, notes Modi biographer Ramesh Menon.
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.
Ajay Kumar Lallu said the party has emerged as the main challenger to the "oppressive" UP government and the 'winds of change' were blowing in the state.
The demand comes in the backdrop of the UPA government granting a special Rs 3,225 crore package to Bihar, ruled by key UPA constituent Rashtriya Janata Dal, in the Union Budget 2004-05 ahead of the assembly elections in the state.
Senior leader P Chidambaram whose Rajya Sabha tenure is ending from Maharashtra is under consideration from Tamil Nadu as the Congress is all set to get the support of alliance partner the DMK. The G-23 leaders, including Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Vivek Tankha, are also said to be in contention.
The focus now shifts to November 10 counting of votes.
'He only promotes those leaders who will never show any resistance to him in future.'
Sources said that Congress leaders, including Kamal Nath, Digvijaya Singh, Mukul Wasnik, KC Venugopal, Jairam Ramesh, AK Antony, Ambika Soni and Randeep Surjewala, are also taking part in the meeting at Sonia Gandhi's 10 Janpath residence.
Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav on Monday alleged that the police and administration are preventing people from casting votes in Mainpuri parliamentary and Rampur Assembly constituency in the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh.
Party chief Chaudhary Ajit Singh and Jayant Chaudhary will decide on the number of seats the party will contest and the matter may be discussed during a meeting in the next few days
Here are some reactions by political leaders to the five-state election verdict.
According to some of those present in the meeting, Mayawati also referred to the family feud in the Yadav clan, saying after Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav's younger brother Shivpal decided to contest separately the community votes were not transferred to the BSP, and the SP could not even save its "family seats".
The ruling alliance also has some smaller parties like Republican Party of India-Athawale, Asom Gana Parishad, Mizo National Front, National People's Party, Naga People's Front, Pattali Makkal Katchi and Bodoland People's Front, which have one seat each, totalling seven seats.
Congress' poll strategist Prashant Kishor on Tuesday held a two-hour meeting with Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, who is trying to cobble together an alliance of like-minded parties ahead of Uttar Pradesh assembly polls due early next year.
'Educated Muslim women overwhelmingly voted for me because of Modiji's stand on triple talaq.'
Never before has the BJP faced such a crisis over the nomination of the Chief Minister as it is facing now, discovers Prakash Bhandari, veteran observer of Rajasthan politics.
The decision came a day after the Allahabad high court asked the Centre and the state government to file counter affidavits within a week on a petition challenging the decision to rename Allahabad as Prayagraj.
The poll is scheduled for July 17 and the counting of votes will take place on July 20.
The Jat vote is crucial in winning at least 40 assembly seats in Western UP, which has been in the grip of a widespread farmer movement, reports Nitin Kumar.
Reacting to allegations that his party was dividing anti-BJP votes, Owaisi said he was running a political party that has a right to contest on its own.
Hitting back at Bharatiya Janata Party Chief Amit Shah after he needled her on desertions in the Bahujan Samaj Party, former chief minister Mayawati on Sunday said his "childish" remarks betrayed BJP's nervousness ahead of assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.
Congress vice president says people now laugh at Modi's promise of 'achche din'.
Power Secretary Pradeep Kumar Sinha was appointed as the next cabinet secretary of the country on Friday. He will succeed Ajit Seth who has been holding the position for the last four years.
Top party leaders, including those from states, are likely to arrive at the BJP headquarters to file nominations in support of Nadda, who has long been seen as the choice of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah for the job.
"The CEO has sought a report in this regard from the local administration," said official sources.
Polling in Phase II of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections consists of 67 constituencies spread across 11 districts.
