Series of controversies related to Dalit issues have come at a time when the BJP has launched a massive campaign to win back Uttar Pradesh.
The BJP took into consideration caste and regional aspirations while picking ministers in a bid to further consolidate its hold over the politically crucial state which sends the maximum of 80 members to Lok Sabha.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati on Friday trained her guns on Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi for allegedly refusing to have a meal in a Dalit's home, where he spent Thursday night, during the course of his four-day old padyatra in parts of Western Uttar Pradesh.
Selection of candidates was based on factors like clean image and commitment to BSP's mission, claimed the Uttar Pradesh chief minister. Sharat Pradhan reports from Lucknow.
Modi and Shah can't afford to lose any of the 24 per cent Dalit vote of 2014, says Shekhar Gupta.
'Mayawatiji no more controls the bahujan vote in UP.' 'In this election more than 40 per cent of the BSP's core voters blessed the SP without the SP even asking for it.'
The birth anniversary of Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, whose political influence has surged with the passage of time, on Monday was marked by bitter trading of charges between the ruling BJP and opposition parties as they fought for his legacy.
'The brazen politics, in this series of bullying of AMU by functionaries of the Union and provincial governments, utterly disregarding the fact that the matter is sub judice, is quite obvious.' 'One needs to see through the desperate politics of the BJP which governs both Uttar Pradesh and the Centre, especially its woes over its Dalit support base,' says AMU Professor Mohammad Sajjad.
Besides the national capital, polling for the sixth round of the marathon seven-phase elections will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir.
A senior SP leader requesting anonymity said that the party chief had called a meeting to brief the MLAs about the voting process of the Rajya Sabha elections.
Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi's 24 hour-long 'secret' mission in Uttar Pradesh kept everyone on tenterhooks until he finally flew back to New Delhi from Lucknow on Thursday evening.
Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak said on Tuesday night that all the eight candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party have won in the Rajya Sabha elections from the state.
Yoga guru Ramdev was on Saturday booked by Uttar Pradesh police for his controversial remarks targeting Rahul Gandhi that drew flak from various quarters with Congress demanding that he give a public apology as he had insulted Dalits.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav will contest the Lok Sabha elections from Kannauj, the party announced on Wednesday, two days after it had declared another candidate for the Uttar Pradesh seat.
Akhilesh said the alliance's decision was not informed by any seat-sharing math but its pursuit of victory.
Saini's elevation as Haryana chief minister fits in with a pattern that has gathered pace in the BJP after the Congress and its allies like the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh and the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar began making an aggressive bid to woo the largest group of communities and politically most significant, especially in Hindi-speaking states, by pushing for a caste census.
For Yogi Adityanath the successful management of the fair is a crucial part of building 'Brand UP' and making the state a $1 trillion economy.
The Kerala police were the most sensitised to the rights of those arrested while that of Jharkhand and Gujarat the least.
He met the chief minister twice but was scolded and forced to leave, Chhotelal said.
Here are 5 BJP MPs who have taken up cudgels against their party leadership for its handling of Dalit issues.
Mayawati said both the BJP and the SP indulged in empty talks to win the votes of Dalits and Brahmins, but neither safeguarded their interests when in power.
Yadav asserted that he has always maintained that seat distribution should be decided considering which alliance partner is the strongest in a particular state.
Justifying the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government's proposed move of providing a sub-quota for minorities, a Union minister on Saturday said that condition of poor Muslims and Buddhists in the county was "worse" than Dalits.
Modi said that Congress' tally in the Lok Sabha polls will be an "all-time low"
"If you get employment, you will watch Reels for half an hour and work for 12 hours," the Congress leader said.
Akhilesh Yadav said those who are looking for "profit" in the situation will leave.
There was an 8% decline in the BJP's vote share across six regions in UP, and that some OBC castes moved away from the BJP.
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.
'The haste which PM showed for the temple should also be shown for giving house and pension to poor'
People had also started gathering at Mukhtar Ansari's residence in Ghazipur and there was a large deployment of security personnel around the house.
Nothing has been done for Dalits in the last four years, Nagina MP Yashwant Singh wrote in a letter to the PM.
Accusing Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati of not taking any steps for the betterment of Dalits, Bharatiya Janata Party national spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday sought to know details of the measures taken by her for the welfare of downtrodden communities in the state.
Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his reported remarks that BJP needs to bring dalits into its fold as nationalists were already with the party, wondering whether he did not consider dalits and backwards as nationalists.
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 Supreme Court on Monday imposed an interim stay on directives passed by the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments that eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route must display names of owners.
Political observers lauded the SP's choices in fielding several non-Yadav and Scheduled Caste candidates, the party's alliance with the Congress, and Rahul Gandhi's campaign around the danger to the Constitution if the BJP won a big majority.
"What was even more shocking that even someone like Anna Hazare, who was spearheading the movement against rising corruption in the country, did not care to ensure inclusion of a Dalit on the committee. After all he hails from Maharastra which gave birth to the greatest Dalit icon Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar, who led several movements for the upliftment of the downtrodden dalits," Mayawati said.
A notification by the MHA said a trust by the name 'Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra' has been registered with its registered office at R-20, Greater Kailash Part-1, New Delhi, 110048. The ministry also said as directed by the SC, the UP government has already issued the allotment letter of a five-acre plot to the Sunni Central Waqf Board for construction of a mosque.
BJP chief Amit Shah had a meal with a Dalit family in PM Modi's Lok Sabha constituency.
The activists of Dr Ambedkar Vichar Samiti and Nav Srijan Samiti from Ahmedabad were taken into custody on Sunday night and sent back home, officials said.
