Upset with the Congress for not conceding any seat for the Samajwadi Party in the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday hinted that the Congress could get the same treatment from his party in Uttar Pradesh.
BSP chief Mayawati removed her nephew Akash Anand from all party posts and said that she will not name her successor till she is alive. In a slew of other significant changes in the BSP leadership announced at a high-level meeting of the party's office-bearers from across the country, Mayawati appointed her brother Anand Kumar and Ramji Gautam as national coordinators. Mayawati also criticized the budgets of both the central and Uttar Pradesh governments, saying they were "unrealistic" and detached from ground realities.
It also allowed political parties and candidates to hold meetings and rallies with the restriction of using only 50 per cent capacity of space being relaxed.
Sessions Judge and the Designated POTA Judge, Shailendra Kumar Saxena, observed that the law is same for one.
The decision to schedule/postpone the UP election will be taken by Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra and Election Commissioners Rajiv Kumar and Anup Chandra Pandey.
The opposition, which had earlier accepted defeat, is again jumping around today, the UP CM said.
"Ladki Hoon, Lad Sakti Hoon is a slogan but Congress didn't give me a chance to fight," she added.
The Budget session of the Uttar Pradesh assembly got off to a tempestuous start on Thursday with opposition Bahujan Samaj Party creating pandemonium during the governor's address to the joint sitting of both Houses, forcing him to cut short his speech.
Besides Nadda, BJP general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh, Union Minister, election in-charge for Uttar Pradesh Dharmendra Pradhan, state unit president Swatantar Dev Singh and general secretary (organisation) Sunil Bansal were among those who attended the meeting that lasted for nearly five hours.
The move comes after one of the Assembly committees held him guilty of breach of privilege and contempt for his failure to appear before it.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday alleged a 'well-planned' conspiracy by the Bharatiya Janata Party for the violence in Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal, where a team of Congress MPs led by Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to visit on December 4 amid restrictions imposed by the district administration.
He lashed out at the state government terming it an "extremely sad and inhuman" crime.
The ministers who failed to find places in the second term of the BJP government in the state included Dinesh Sharma, Satish Mahana, Ashutosh Tandon, Shrikant Sharma, Siddharth Nath Singh, and others.
The Congress on Tuesday suffered a major upset in Himachal Pradesh at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha elections which were marred by cross-voting in all the three states though it won three seats in Karnataka while the saffron party pocketed an extra seat in Uttar Pradesh.
The suspension of 49 Lok Sabha MPs came a day after, a total of 78 -- 33 from the Lower House and 45 from the Upper House -- lawmakers were suspended from Parliament for disrupting proceedings.
The data also showed that the state stood third in cases of murder (at 2,295) after Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in 2022, and ranked fourth in rape cases (at 2,904) after Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
Rampur Sadar and Khatauli in Uttar Pradesh, Padampur in Odisha, Sardarshahar in Rajasthan, Kurhani in Bihar and Bhanupratappur in Chhattisgarh are the assembly seats where the bypolls are being held.
It also includes Maharashtra deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, BJP leader Manoj Tiwari and MP home minister Narottam Mishra.
Shubham Dwivedi, a 31-year-old businessman from Kanpur who was killed in the Pahalgam terror attack, was cremated at his native village with full state honours on Thursday morning. The cremation was attended by Uttar Pradesh Cabinet ministers Yogendra Upadhyay and Rakesh Sachan, who placed wreaths on Dwivedi's mortal remains and offered their condolences to the bereaved family. A guard of honour was also presented to the departed soul. Dwivedi, who got married to Ashanya on February 12, was among the 26 persons, mostly tourists, who were killed on Tuesday at Baisaran meadow near Pahalgam in Anantnag district in one of the most gruesome attacks targeting civilians in Kashmir in a long time.
The revised salaries of MPs are significantly lower than the salaries drawn by top bureaucrats in the country.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress's alliance in Uttar Pradesh came under scrutiny as both parties did not hold a single joint campaign for the bypolls to nine assembly seats. While both parties maintained that the alliance is strong, BJP ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) claimed a crack in the alliance. The Congress opted out of the bypolls and announced coordination committees for all nine seats to support the SP. However, the absence of joint rallies raised questions about the alliance's strength. The SP campaign was spearheaded by its chief Akhilesh Yadav, while the Congress cited its leaders' busy schedules in Maharashtra and Jharkhand for the lack of joint campaigns. The bypoll results will be announced on November 23.
The bahujan hitai, bahujan sukhai motto was used in the press note issued by the BSP informing about the party chief Mayawati's election meetings in Nagpur (Maharashtra) on Thursday.
Hindi Diwas was observed across India with leaders emphasizing Hindi's role as a unifying factor and the need to enrich all Indian languages. Events were held in India and abroad to promote the language.
The Hyderabad MP had earlier announced thatthe AIMIM will contest 100 seats in Uttar Pradesh polls scheduled early next year.
Among the other promises made by the party are purchase of wheat and paddy at Rs 2,500 per quintal and Rs 400 per quintal for sugarcane.
While two bodies were recovered on Wednesday, the death toll climbed to four on Thursday after the recovery of two more bodies from the Indira Priyadarshini Hydroelectric project site in Kangra district.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday met ministers from the state at his residence in Lucknow to discuss the upcoming assembly bypolls in 10 constituencies.
People of Maharashtra have always strived to maintain communal harmony, said Pawar.
I begin a new chapter in my political journey. Jai Hind," he wrote on Twitter sharing his brief resignation letter to Sonia Gandhi.
"You are seeing my face everywhere," the Congress leader added while addressing a press conference to release the party's 'youth manifesto' along with her brother and former president Rahul Gandhi.
Bypolls to 10 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh will be a litmus test for the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA)'s unity after the group's success in the recent Lok Sabha polls when they won more than 40 seats, significantly contributing to the Bharatiya Janata Party's failure to win a simple majority in parliament.
Polling for 58 assembly seats spread across 11 districts in the western part of the state began in the morning.
Polling for the first phase of the high voltage Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections for 55 seats in 10 districts would be held on Wednesday that will decide the fate of two ministers, 31 members of Legislative Assembly and 15 former ministers.
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.
BJP president Nitin Gadkari attributed the stunning victory of the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh to polarisation of votes
Zafar Ali, the president of the Shahi Jama Masjid committee in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, was arrested on Sunday in connection with the violence that erupted in November 2022 over a court-ordered survey of the mosque. Ali's brother alleged that the arrest was intended to prevent him from submitting his testimony before a judicial commission investigating the violence. The mosque has been at the center of a controversy after a petition claimed it was the site of an ancient Hindu temple. The violence resulted in four deaths and several injuries.
Dominic Xavier offers his take on the inauguration of the Purvanchal Expressway on Tuesday.
Aside from the 36 MPs, the meeting was also attended by BJP president J P Nadda and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi, they said.
Of the 59 seats, the BJP had won 51 in the 2017 Assembly elections, four had gone to the Samajwadi Party, and three to the Bahujan Samaj Party.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan promising to reform "majnus" and bring about a legislation to hang those raping minors.
