Yogi expands UP Cabinet in attempt to balance caste, regional aspirations head of the assembly polls early next year.
Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar, Rashtriya Lok Dal's Anil Kumar and two Bharatiya Janata Party leaders were sworn in on Tuesday as Yogi Adityanath expanded his council of ministers, weeks ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
Two other ministers Swantradev Singh and Mohsin Raza also took oath.
The BJP finalised its candidates for 172 assembly seats in UP and is likely to field both Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya who are currently MLCs.
A video had surfaced on social media which purportedly showed SP leader Mukesh Siddharth making the controversial statement.
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.
The Samajwadi Party's Mainpuri district unit Thursday gave a written request to the party chief to contest from the Karhal seat and he agreed, sources said.
Mulayam's last rites will be performed with full state honours in Saifai near Etawah in Uttar Pradesh
Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Sunday lambasted Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav for ignoring the institution of the Speaker during the on-going 125th anniversary celebrations of the Uttar Pradesh State Legislature. Mayawati sought to draw Akhilesh's attention to the absence of any mention of the Legislative Assembly speaker or the chairperson of the UP State Legislative Council in a full-page advertisement that appeared in all major newspapers.
The SP chief said no MLAs or ministers quitting the BJP will be taken into his party anymore.
The BJP appointed Sunil Bansal, one of the party's key election managers, as its national general secretary and in charge of three opposition-ruled states -- West Bengal, Odisha and Telangana -- in run-up to the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.
The Election Commission is confident of holding the five assembly polls due early next year, including in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, on time as the poll panel has gained a lot of experience from the electoral exercise in Bihar, West Bengal and four other assemblies amid the coronavirus pandemic, Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra has asserted.
Ten Union ministers will be the permanent invitees to the Inter-State Council, according to an official notification.
Uddhav Thackeray criticized BJP MP Nishikant Dubey for his controversial remarks amid the Marathi-Hindi language row, accusing him of trying to divide people and disturb harmony.
A 15-member delegation from the Samajwadi Party (SP) will travel to Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, on Saturday to investigate violence that occurred following a court-ordered survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid complex. The visit comes after tensions escalated in Sambhal due to the survey, which was ordered by a local court based on a petition claiming the mosque was built on the site of a demolished temple. The violence on November 24 resulted in four deaths and numerous injuries, prompting the SP to postpone its initial visit. The delegation, led by SP state president Shyam Lal Pal, includes prominent party figures, including the Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly and the Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council. The district administration has imposed prohibitory orders, barring outsiders from entering Sambhal until Saturday. However, the SP delegation is expected to proceed with its visit, aiming to gather information about the violence and submit a report to party chief Akhilesh Yadav.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in the assembly polls on Thursday has put the party on a stronger wicket for the election for the post of President expected later this year.
He is the fourth chief minister from the saffron party to head the northern state. Before Adityanath, Kalyan Singh, Ram Prakash Gupta and Rajnath Singh of the BJP had served as Uttar Pradesh chief ministers.
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.
RLD sources said that the party chief was "taken aback" by the SP's delay in announcing his name as the candidate for the Rajya Sabha elections.
'If the BJP doesn't want to accept the will of the people, then we will show them what a majority means.'
Four BJP leaders and former Supreme Court judge S Abdul Nazeer, who was part of the Constitution bench that upheld the archaeological report on Ayodhya, were among six new faces appointed as Governors on Sunday.
However, constitutional experts say it was not the first time such thing had happened and there is nothing serious if the upper house does not approve the bills.
The bypolls were necessitated after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya vacated their seats following their election to the Uttar Pradesh legislative council.
The 1988 batch officer from Mau district in Uttar Pradesh is considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and had worked with him in Gujarat.
Nagpur Guardian Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule said social media was used to vitiate the atmosphere, and appealed to the opposition not to politicise the matter.
The temporary Maharashtra crisis might be over in a few weeks. But the permanent crisis -- the Sena's relationship with its friends old and new -- remains.
Two Union ministers and two senior Uttar Pradesh Congress legislators got together and roughed up a handful of Samajwadi Party activists who attempted to stage a black flag demonstration against Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi on his arrival in Allahabad on Monday afternoon.
"Mohit Yadav is my name...," said the 24-year-old, before slapping sub-inspector Jitendra Kumar.
Considered a close aide of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Arvind Kumar Sharma kicked off his political innings after taking voluntary retirement from the Indian Administrative Service and became a member of the UP legislative council.
Rekha Gupta, a former DUSU president and a long-time member of the RSS, has been chosen as the Leader of the House in the Delhi Assembly and will become the fourth woman chief minister of Delhi. She won the Shalimar Bagh seat in the February 5 Assembly polls, defeating her AAP rival Bandana Kumari. Gupta, a BCom graduate and lawyer, has a long history of working for women's welfare, having served as the national secretary of the BJP's youth wing and the national vice-president of BJP Mahila Morcha. The BJP has returned to power in Delhi after over 26 years, ending the 10-year rule of the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP.
Samajwadi Party member of Parliament Shailendra Kumar, two members of Legislative Assembly including Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, and a member of Legislative Council were on Sunday arrested in Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh on charges of an attempt to murder after they allegedly threatened a candidate in local body elections, the police said.
The judicial custody of Independent member of Legislative Assembly Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, Samajwadi Party member of Parliament Shailendra Kumar, member of Legislative Council Akshay Pratap Singh alias Gopalji, MLA Vinod Saroj and seven others was extended on Saturday by 14 days by a local court in Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh.
A day after a statue of Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati was vandalised in Lucknow, a party delegation on Friday met Uttar Pradesh Governor B L Joshi and submitted a memorandum to him urging imposition of President's rule in the state in view of the "jungle" and "goondaraj".
Vijay, despite the loud message from his delayed arrival at the road-show/stampede venue, and more so his continued inaccessibility for fans-turned-cadres after graduating from a super-star to a political party leader with electoral ambitions, refuses to change. Or, so it seems, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Adityanath said the BJP government has done whatever the party promised in the run-up to the last assembly polls in 2017.
Singh, who belongs to the backward Kurmi caste and played a crucial role in paving the way for the party's second consecutive win in the UP Assembly polls.
Uttar Pradesh Election Watch and the ADR have analysed the self-sworn affidavits of 45 of the total 53 ministers, including the chief minister.
The rapprochement could open the door to an anti-saffron alliance for the 2019 general elections, reports Archis Mohan.
The Bharatiya Janata Party is considering fielding Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from Ayodhya as its senior leaders meet to finalise candidates for the assembly polls starting from February 10.
Taking its probe to the doorsteps of former Uttar Pradesh minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh, the Central Bureau of Investigation on Saturday questioned his cousin and member of state legislative council Akshay Pratap Singh in connection with the violence in Balipur village in which Deputy Superintendent of Police Zia-ul-Haq was killed.
