Stung by the frontal attack launched by the top Congress leadership against her, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has hit out at both Congress President Sonia Gandhi and son Rahul.
In 2014 too, the Congress had lost all the 26 seats in Gujarat.
'Benares has always encouraged healthy debate where disagreement and dissent was never frowned upon. Today, the people are faced with a situation where a political opponent is not being allowed to give election speeches and is being physically attacked.' 'We are going to hand over power to a person who has a reputation of being dictatorial, who does not brook dissent and is known to be vindictive to his opponents,' author Kashinath Singh tells Rediff.com contributor Anita Katyal.
'He won't be able to migrate; he must survive in that environment.' 'He will go back after the election to becoming invisible.'
The issue combined with its alliance with anti-Congress parties in 1989 won the BJP 85 seats in Lok Sabha elections against mere two in 1984.
With actor-turned-politician Smriti Irani entering the fray as a Bhartiya Janata Party candidate in Amethi, a war of words has broken out between her and Aam Aadmi Party contender Kumar Vishwas over his remark that any "Irani or Pakistani" will not make any difference in the constituency.
Congress masterstroke foiled by Vajpayee niece's failure. Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com.
Continuing his attack on the Congress, he said efforts to stop the 'leakage' could have been made earlier as well but there was no intention and will power.
The kisan is as integral a part of the BJP's master plan for the 2019 polls as the Dalit because it surmised that the farmers and Dalits were as restive in UP as in much of the country, and if it had to cut its losses, its reflexes must kick in fast. Radhika Ramaseshan reports.
With 200 MPs out of 785 above the age of 65, there is a serious shadow of COVID-19 looming over the monsoon session Of Parliament.
The RJD chief said, "Bihar mandate is a big slap on the Narendra Modi government. PM Modi wanted to fool people of Bihar but they understood his nefarious designs."
Counting of votes is underway in assembly byelection to 58 seats in 11 states including Madhya Pradesh where the results will decide the fate of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.
Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi may be well above 40 years of age, but his party activists on Friday insisted on disallowing anybody above 35 to enter the venue of a Youth Congress meet convened by him in Varanasi.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday hit out at the Election Commission for allowing Rahul Gandhi to hold a road show in a Varanasi area where Narendra Modi was refused permission for a rally, saying it was done for "political reasons".
Objecting to telecast of Narendra Modi's road show in Varanasi when polling was on for the sixth phase, Congress on Thursday pressed the poll panel for registration of FIR against BJP leaders and alleged that EC "inaction" on previous violations of code of conduct had given the saffron party an opportunity to flout the electoral laws.
Hitting out at Narendra Modi and Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal on Friday alleged they were snatching land from farmers and giving it to industrialists.
Faceless Ambedkarite groups from across the country are running BSP's election war rooms, writes Archis Mohan.
Claiming that no untoward incident had taken place during the last 48 hours, Rupani said the situation has been brought under control by police.
The question now is whether BJP patriarch L K Advani will fall in line and contest from Gandhinagar or he would stick to his guns and not contest at all, says Renu Mittal
'Overnight, with zero qualification whatsoever for the responsibility of prime ministership, Priyanka is being projected as an alternative to Narendra Damodardas Modi!' says Nazarwala who predicted Mayawati's win in the 2007 UP elections, forecast her rout in the 2012 polls, and called right the 2017 UP assembly election result.
Congress general secretary and the party's star campaigner in Uttar Pradesh Rahul Gandhi made it loud and clear on Saturday that his party will not join hands with any "undesirable elements". "We will not align with criminals and thieves at any cost," he told a well-attended election rally in Pindra, nearly 28 km from Varanasi. He told the people, "I do not mind even if you give just two or four seats to the Congress in UP".
Even as Priyanka is gaining traction among the electorate and the media, her counterpart for the western UP region, Jyotiraditya Scindia, has been low key and perceptibly missing from the 'heat and dust' of elections in UP, reports Virendra Singh Rawat.
The Congress has kicked off the Uttar Pradesh assembly election campaign against state Chief Minister Mayawati with the party signaling in no uncertain terms that Rahul Gandhi would be at the centre stage of the fight for UP, a battle which is set to last for the next one year as Hindi heartland's biggest state becomes the battleground.
The PBD this year functions as a political stage for the BJP government at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh. Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president Rahul Gandhi have been wooing the Indian diaspora through widely publicised events across the country. At the PBD, the mood was either largely pro-Modi, and when not, apolitical.
The new candidates fielded from these constituencies by the BJP are: SP Singh Baghel (Agra), Parameshwar Lal Saini (Sambhal), Raj Kumar Chaher (Fatehpur Sikri), Jai Prakash Rawat (Hardoi-SC), Ashok Rawat (Misrikh-SC) and Arun Sagar (Shahjahanpur-SC).
Sultanpur member of Parliament and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Varun Gandhi and his wife Yamini were blessed with a baby girl on Monday.
After the apex court on Tuesday rapped the Centre and the Lt Governor over the delay in government formation in Delhi, Aam Aadmi Party and Congress have charged that Bharatiya Janata Party was "running away" from fresh polls in the national capital, claims which were promptly countered by the saffron outfit
As many as 48 ministers of National Democratic Allaince government were in the fray in the general elections.
Given the controversy over Uttar Pradesh's population control moves, Hemant Shivsaran/Rediff.com digs deep to find out how many children BJP MLAs in UP have.
Akbar had resigned as junior external affairs minister in the wake of allegation of sexual misconduct during his tenure as a senior editor. The alleged incidents came to light during the #MeToo movement. Akbar had denied the allegations.
Akhilesh was referring to the advertisement in which Bachchan is seen inviting tourists to visit the Wild Ass Sanctuary located in Little Rann of Kutch in the state.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Murli Manohar Joshi, shifted to Kanpur Lok Sabha seat from Varanasi to accommodate Narendra Modi, on Friday made a veiled attack on sitting Congress MP and Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal, saying he never imagined that one day he would have to fight elections from "constituency of people whose names cropped up in coal gate scam."
The Bharatiya Janata Party swept urban local body elections in Uttar Pradesh winning 10 of 12 mayoral posts in municipal corporations with Congress failing to open its account.
The high octane campaign marked by vitriolic attacks and counter-attacks by political leaders and use of derogatory language and objectionable remarks that forced the Election Commission to step in ended at 6 pm.
Counting's underway and the fate of the candidates is awaited. As we wait for the results with bated breath, here's how your heavyweights are faring for now.
'If an election could be won only by canvassing then the AAP candidate will easily win. In canvassing they have let all the parties behind. They have met every voter in the villages many times and they have come from so far.' A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com travels to the rural hinterland of Varanasi and finds that only the BJP and AAP are active here.
With the Aam Aadmi Party targeting him, Narendra Modi on Wednesday claimed that political parties were getting together to prevent him from coming to power in the Lok Sabha elections and called the fledgling party as the 'B' team of Congress.
Addressing a 'nukkad sabha' in favour of Congress nominee Rakesh Sachan in Fatehpur, the Congress general secretary in-charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh said, "The issue of patriotism is raised whenever elections come, but the real questions on farmers, unemployed, women safety are left behind."
Modi also lashed at those "demeaning" the valour displayed by the armed forces after the Jaish-e-Mohammed attack against the Central Reserve Police Force in Kashmir.
Some BJP and Congress leaders believe the assembly building is filled with 'negative energy'.
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