Instead of harvesting the wrath against the BJP and using it to their advantage by opting for a collective form of leadership, the Congress decided once again to bestow their trust in the Hooda family who were given a free hand in the distribution of tickets. This turned out to be the biggest blunder and this faulty selection was the single over riding factor in the Congress defeat, explains Rashme Sehgal.
The Bahujan Samaj Party will not enter into any poll alliance while contesting the next Assembly election in Madhya Pradesh.
The SP president and the RLD chief announced the tie-up on social media for the general elections later this year.
Sources said the committee is also expected to underline its unhappiness at the conduct of some opposition members during its proceedings and make a mention of it in its recommendations to the House.
Shinde welcomed the former Rajasthan minister to the Shiv Sena and said Gudha left the ministerial position for the cause of people.
Training his guns on the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said corruption and scams were rampant during their regimes.
The ruling Congress, voted to office in 2018 after 15 years in opposition, and the Bharatiya Janata Party are the main contenders for power in the state, where the Aam Aadmi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and some regional outfits are also in the fray.
Reacting to recent incidents of clashes in different parts of the state after the swearing in of Akhilesh, Khan termed it a "conspiracy" hatched by BSP workers to defame the government in the name of law and order.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has referred MPs' complaints on the issue involving BJP member Ramesh Bidhuri's use of objectionable words against BSP's Danish Ali to the Privileges Committee, sources said on Thursday.
'They (BJP) can claim of winning even 82 seats, despite the fact that Uttar Pradesh has only 80 seats'
To help the Congress break the impasse on the leadership issue, the three-MLA strong Bahujan Samaj Party on Sunday offered "unconditional support" to it in Uttarakhand and expressed desire to share power. "On the direction of Mayawati, our party has decided to give full support to Congress," state BSP President Surajmal told PTI.
A statement from the Congress said the party's disciplinary committee decided to suspend Kumbhani after a thorough discussion, adding it had come to the conclusion that the nomination form was rejected due to gross negligence on his part or "in connivance with the BJP".
The party will also leave two seats for the Apna Dal, and entered into an electoral agreement with the lesser known Jan Adhikar Party.
Local Congress workers, led by city unit's working president Dinesh Savalia, staged a protest outside Kumbhani's locked house in Puna Gam area, calling him traitor and accusing him of giving a walkover to the BJP.
Naresh Agarwal, who defected from Samajwadi Party, on Wednesday joined the BSP which declared him as its candidate for the Lok Sabha polls from Farrukhabad seat, a day after another SP leader Dhaniram Verma was inducted into Mayawati-led party. Agarwal, who was transport minister in the erstwhile Mulayam Singh Yadav government, was inducted into the party by chief minister Mayawati.
The opposition parties on Sunday slammed the move to hire public servants through lateral entry, claiming it will snatch reservations from SCs, STs and OBCs, but the Bharatiya Janata Party hit back stating the National Democratic Alliance government was bringing transparency to this mode of recruitment started by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance.
About 82 per cent of the total income from unknown sources declared by national political parties in 2022-23 came from electoral bonds, according to a poll rights body.
Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party has emerged as the third largest party in the Rajya Sabha, relegating the CPI(M) to fourth position in yet another bad news for Marxists ahead of the Assembly polls in West Bengal and Kerala.
Agitated over arrest of its MLA for his alleged role in Muzaffarnagar riots, Bahujan Samaj Party on Sunday lashed out at the ruling Samajwadi Party, accusing it of adopting a "pick and choose" approach by targeting political rivals and protecting its own leaders.
The Bahujan Samaj Party on Tuesday said it is yet to decide on fielding candidate against Samajwadi Party nominee Dimple Yadav in Kannauj.
However, the national party count has gone down to six from 14 in over seven decades.
The party high command was likely to take a decision in this connection soon, they said.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Sunday cautioned voters that neither an Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance nor a united SP can check Bharatiya Janata Party and that only her party would render a crushing blow to Modi government by defeating the saffron party in Uttar Pradesh so that it does not take "immature" steps like the note ban.
Political parties and leaders wait with bated breath for the Haryana and Jammu-Kashmir assembly poll results on Tuesday.
Suspended Congress leader Nilesh Kumbhani, whose nomination form was rejected over discrepancies leading to Bharatiya Janata Party winning the Surat Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat unopposed, resurfaced on Saturday after 20 days and alleged it was the grand old party that had betrayed him first in 2017.
Mayawati, however, said this should not mean that there would be some kind of electoral understanding between the BSP and Congress.
The Lok Sabha's Privileges Committee, headed by BJP member Sunil Kumar Singh, took up other issues on the agenda as Bidhuri, who was campaigning for the party in poll-bound Rajasthan, kept away.
Faceless Ambedkarite groups from across the country are running BSP's election war rooms, writes Archis Mohan.
Voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will be held on Friday for 88 seats in 13 states with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala.
The states and union territories where the elections are being held in this phase are Assam (4), Bihar (5), Chhattisgarh (7), Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (2), Goa (2), Gujarat (25), Karnataka (14), Maharashtra (11), Madhya Pradesh (8), Uttar Pradesh (10) and West Bengal (4). The BJP has bagged the Surat seat unopposed.
In the same breath, the RPI-A leader said, "No one can challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- neither Congress president Rahul Gandhi, nor SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, nor BSP supremo Mayawati."
Apparently peeved over denial of ticket from Lucknow (west) seat, senior BSP leader Neeraj Bora on Thursday resigned from the party, which claimed that he was expelled.
However, there was no official word from the Lokpal.
The Bahujan Samaj Party, which has decided to contest the Lok Sabha elections on its own, on Tuesday announced candidates for 12 out of 39 constituencies in Tamil Nadu. In the first phase, BSP president Mayawati cleared 12 names and the process was on to select candidates for the remaining constituencies. The party was in the process of identifying suitable candidates from each community to be fielded in all the Lok Sabha constituencies in Tamil Nadu, said a BSP leader.
Confident of giving a tough fight to Congress and BJP, Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party, which surprised many by ranking third in 2008 Assembly elections with a vote share of 14 per cent, is all to set announce its candidates for all the 70 seats in Delhi.
Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Legislative Assembly Sangeet Som, accused of uploading a fake video that played a role in provoking communal tension in Muzaffarnagar and making inflammatory speeches, was arrested on Saturday.
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.
Here's the full list of 49 MPs suspended from Lok Sabha:
However, he said it would have been better to have an alliance and expressed confidence that the party will win upcoming assembly elections in all states --- Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Telangana.
