'In Western UP, last time a lot of Dalits voted for the BJP.' 'This time, there is a rethink among Dalits about the extent of their support for the BJP.'
The Samajwadi Party released its list of 40 star campaigners in which there was no mention of Mulayam Singh Yadav.
He came to power with a huge mandate in 2012, but Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has now forfeited the voters' trust.
Mulayam said his son had promised to leave the post of party president after staying at the helm for three months, but he did not do so.
A lowdown on the who's who of the Yadav family.
Yadav, a former Uttar Pradesh chief minister, was slated to travel to Kannuaj, around 125 km from the Uttar Pradesh capital, for a tractor rally as part of the 'Kisan Yatra' in support of farmers protesting against the Centre's new agri laws and the 'Bharat Bandh' called by them on Tuesday.
The war in Samajwadi Party was far from over on Sunday with a defiant Ram Gopal Yadav declaring Akhilesh Yadav as party president at the national convention in Lucknow which was declared as "unconstitutional" by supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and warring uncle Shivpal were conspicuous in their absence.
'The 2020 assembly election was a Tejaswi Yadav election; whereas this is a Lalu Yadav election. It is his plan.'
In a clear reference to his estranged uncle, Shivpal Yadav who is contesting from the neighbouring Jaswantnagar seat, Akhilesh said, "These very people want to float a new party... the election here is different from what is being fought in the state. Here efforts are to defeat me... people of Etawah should not fall prey to any such design."
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath appeared to make a pitch in the assembly for a temple where a mosque stands now in Mathura, saying that Krishna Kanhaiya wouldn't have it any other way.
The SP president and the RLD chief announced the tie-up on social media for the general elections later this year.
'Laluji is like my father and I am like his son.'
A voter turnout of over 40 per cent was recorded till 1 pm on Monday in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections in 96 constituencies spread over 10 states and Union Territories amid incidents of violence in Andhra Pradesh and reports of poll boycott in some villages of Uttar Pradesh.
Rahul Gandhi, who was also present at the event, refused to comment on UP CM's proposal.
The stakes are significant for the BJP in this round as the party had in 2019 won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, that will go to polls on May 7.
Controversy shrouds the expansion of the Akhilesh Yadav ministry on Monday with a social activist throwing a spanner by challenging before Governor Ram Naik the possible re-entry of tainted former Mines Minister Gayatri Prajapati.
When asked what transpired at the informal meeting of the alliance leaders in the evening, the Delhi chief minister said his party sought seat-sharing discussions for all the states.
Home to several Yadav family bastions, Phase III of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections is especially crucial for the Samajwadi Party.
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.
Akhilesh said that the defeat of the Dalit candidate would cement his party's relations with Mayawati-led BSP.
Akhilesh Yadav also took a jibe at his successor Yogi Adityanath, saying that when he would form the government again in 2022, he would sprinkle 'ganga jal' on all the government offices to purify them.
Scenes from the Opposition leaders' dinner meeting, in Bengaluru on Monday, July 17, 2023.
The remarks come as another setback to Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, who was recently removed from party's state president post owing to an apparent feud in the first family of the state.
A voter turnout of 60.19 per cent was recorded till 5 pm in the third phase of Lok Sabha elections in 93 constituencies spread over 11 states and Union Territories on Tuesday with sporadic incidents of violence in West Bengal.
"Ramgopal Yadav was expelled from the party for six years on 30 December, 2016. Therefore the party's national convention called by him on 1 January, 2017 was illegal," he asserted.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday sought to ridicule Prime Minister Narendra Modi's roadshows saying they all are bound to fail like the earlier ones and would stray the PM "somewhere else."
Akhilesh Yadav begins his campaign for next assembly election in Uttar Pradesh.
Justice Khanna said all the intervention applications filed on the issue will also be taken on April 16 when the final hearing will take place.
Mulayam had slammed the SP-Congress alliance and said that the SP was capable of contesting elections alone.
Informing about his decision, Maurya said in a tweet in Hindi, 'Due to the attitude of gross neglect towards Dalits, backwards, farmers, unemployed youth and small and medium-sized traders, I am resigning from the council of ministers of Yogi (Adityanath) of UP.'
MP-MLA court magistrate Shobit Bansal awarded the three the maximum seven-year sentence.
He slammed the Samajwadi Party for being sympathetic towards terrorists and claimed that the previous government headed by it had sought to withdraw cases against several terror accused as 'a return gift'.
The disqualifications of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and party member Ram Gopal Yadav were never taken back on papers. Sources said revoking the duo's disqualification was conditional.
Dressed in traditional finery, Muslims across India offered prayers at mosques and eidgahs on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr on Thursday, marking the end of the holy month of Ramzan.
The state education department has ordered an inquiry into how these bags ended up in Gujarat.
The BJP got the benefit of a split in Muslim votes in some seats of western UP, and its candidates registered wins from Muzaffarnagar, Kairana, Meerut, Bulandshahr, Baghpat and Aligarh Lok Sabha seats.
The SP chief went to his father's residence to invite him to the October 5 national executive meeting, party MLC Sunil Singh Yadav said.
Earlier on Wednesday, the district court ruled that a priest can perform prayers before the idols in a cellar of the Gyanvapi Masjid, a significant development in the legal battle over the mosque adjacent to the Kashi Vishwanath temple.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances