Members from the Jayant Chaudhary's Rashtriya Lok Dal too were part of the group, their participation seen as another indication that the party is all set to switch sides from the SP to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and the tribal face of the party, Vishnu Deo Sai, on Wednesday took oath as the chief minister of Chhattisgarh, 10 days after the saffron party returned to power after a gap of five years by unseating Congress in the assembly elections.
'The Hindu electorate is more or less in the BJP defined space now.'
'If all we do is keep on celebrating, then next time you might find that the BJP government is out of Maharashtra'
The first phase of UP polls in 73 assembly constituencies on Saturday witnessed an "exemplary" 64.22 per cent voter turnout.
Yogi Adityanath, who has been declared BJP candidate from Gorakhpur will be the second leader to contest from the district as a chief minister after Tribhuvan Narayan Singh, who lost in 1971.
Police on Thursday registered a case of murder into the deaths of two teenage girls whose bodies were found in a field in Unnao even as a post-mortem revealed no injury marks.
The Congress leader alleged that BJP-appointed governors have violated the Constitution and have in the process "gravely impaired" parliamentary democracy, its conventions and traditions.
The 67-year-old gave the example of two neighbouring states, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, to buttress his point on why seat-sharing pattern of the INDIA bloc will vary from state to state.
Some eyewitnesses said the driver, who is among the injured, tried to speed across the level crossing even when onlookers tried to draw his attention to the approaching train.
"It was a political conspiracy which has been exposed... peace and order will be maintained at all cost... the administration and government have repulsed the designs (of conspirators) sternly," Adityanath said.
Digvijaya Singh is no longer in Rahul's close circle of advisers. His move to the Upper House was to ensure that the senior leader does not meddle in Madhya Pradesh politics in the run up to the crucial Lok Sabha polls. Anita Katyal reports
As Som, who is an accused in the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots case, and Samajwadi Party leader Atul Pradhan took out separate rallies, prohibitory orders were enforced across Shamli district and borders of Kairana sealed and paramilitary forces deployed. Both the rallies were stopped by authorities.
"Anti-cow slaughter, we had earlier (previous tenure) tabled it, but it was not given assent. I have asked the Law Minister to table it once again.. it will be tabled by tomorrow or the day after and we will get it approved," Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa said.
'This politics doesn't care for the prosperity of people. It evokes communal feelings, and in the end some get killed,' says BSP MP Rashid Alvi.
The monsoon spelt mayhem in several parts of the country on Monday, particularly Mumbai where local train services and flight operations were hit and everyday life disrupted as well as Assam that was grappling with floods yet again.
'Unlike in the sporting arena, where sports federations moved from partisan to impartial referees, in Indian democracy's biggest festival, it appears we are moving backward from unbiased and objective to one-sided and partisan,' observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
In a bid to embarrass Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, Nitish Kumar has invited 'bujurg' Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani to attend his oath-taking ceremony.
Nearly 2.6 crore people in 73 constituencies of western Uttar Pradesh are voting on Saturday in the first of the seven phases of high-stake assembly elections
Adityanath will be the 21st UP chief minister and the fourth from the BJP.
A down-to-the-wire contest is likely in some of the seats in the high-stakes Rajya Sabha elections in seven states, especially in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Haryana, where the fate of candidates including senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal and senior lawyer R K Anand is being decided on Saturday.
Leader of the House Arun Jaitley maintained that the governments in Goa and Manipur are being formed as per the democratic norms.
The two parties, however, are in a neck-and-neck race in Manipur and Goa.
Even as the BJP government in Karnataka prepares to table the anti-conversion Bill during the ongoing winter session of legislature, state's energy minister V Sunil Kumar on Monday said that a law prohibiting 'love jihad' will also be introduced in the days to come.
The Maharashtra government will amend its agriculture law to protect farmers and Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs) as the three central farm laws are not in the interest of agriculturists, state Revenue Minister Balasaheb Thorat said.
Despite the flood of BJP victories, it is difficult to see how regional parties will disappear. These parties not only have the same development goals as the national parties but also promise good governance
Counting of votes will be held on Thursday for 51 assembly seats and two Lok Sabha constituencies spread across 18 states where by-elections were held two days ago.
Fadnavis is the local remote control, but the ultimate remote control is in the hands of the BJP leadership in Delhi, observe Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari.
In March 2012, UP made Akhilesh Yadav the state's youngest CM. In March 2017, he finds himself in the opposition. At this turning point, we look back at the Samajwadi Party leader's political trajectory.
A 17-member delegation of the Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday left for a five-nation tour from Lucknow, drawing criticism from opposition parties for undertaking the visit at a time when Muzaffarnagar riot victims were living in difficult circumstances in relief camps.
Adityanath has earned a new sobriquet "bulldozer baba" due to raging of properties of criminals and mafias built through illegal means.
Mayawati also sought the dismissal of a plea, which alleged that pubic funds were misused in the construction of memorials and statues.
Will DMK send former PM to the Rajya Sabha next month?
The Act deals with automatic disqualification of MPs and state legislators upon being convicted and sentenced for two years or more in a criminal case.
Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and his Maharashtra counterpart Prithviraj Chavan held talks with Congress central leadership in New Delhi amid indications that decision on replacement of chief ministers will be made soon starting with Assam.
Governors must be impartial, fair, and above narrow politics to uphold the values and spirit of the Constitution. But in a rapidly changing political culture where the unstated rule is to crush the Opposition, such values have no meaning. At stake are Constitutional values, federalism and governance, asserts Ramesh Menon.
'It can be said without hesitation that Rahul, Priyanka and Sonia Gandhi enjoy perfect relations of mother-daughter-son all together in the family.' 'But their worldview is different and their style of functioning is different and their favourites in the party are different people.'
Will Akhilesh ask Azam Khan to lead the SP legislature party?
The scion of erstwhile Patiala Royal family refused to comment on the number of ministers who will be part of the new cabinet.
