Welcoming Das into the party, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister announced that the veteran Congress leader will be the party's candidate from Lucknow parliamentary in the next year's Lok Sabha polls. Mayawati also appointed the forty-six-year-old leader as the BSP's national general secretary.
Bahujan Samaj Party Member of Legislative Assembly and former Uttar Pradesh minister Anand Sen was on Tuesday sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in the abduction and murder of a young girl in Faizabad nearly three years ago.Sen's driver Vijay and a close friend Seema Azad were also awarded life imprisonment for being involved in the murder. The sentence was announced by a special trial court presided by Judge Matambar Singh.
Dumpy said, 'Congress has failed to counter communal forces or do anything concrete for the cause of minorities and dalits.'
The electoral battle in Varanasi, according to locals and political experts, is not about whether the PM will win for a third successive occasion, but if he will increase his share of the votes polled and his win margin.
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.
The Bharatiya Janata Party President said that it is difficult to make a guess who will win in Punjab.
Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh on Wednesday claimed that a large number of Bahujan Samaj Party leaders in Uttar Pradesh are in touch with the party, and Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal is also willing to form an alliance with it ahead of the state assembly polls.
Giving a new twist to the cash-for-vote scam, Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh on Tuesday claimed that a BSP worker demanded Rs 5 crore to change his version before a Parliamentary panel probing the matter.
Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju said the police had initiated action in the case.
With Bidhuri expressing regret, sources said, the committee was likely to bring closure to the matter and send its report to the speaker.
"Mayawati had sent offers to me to join BSP and threatened that otherwise I will be left doing rounds of courts and made to languish in jail," he told reporters in Lucknow. The SP general secretary also alleged that independent MLA Mukhtar Ansari, accused in Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Krishnand Rai murder case, and BSP MP Akbar Ahmad Dampi conspired to kill him during the recently-held Lok Sabha bypolls in UP.
Lucknow has turned into a 'Blue Fortress' for Tuesday's Bahujan Samaj Party sponsored Savdhan raho, Aage Barho rally with people started to throng the capital in hordes while unprecedented security arrangements have been made for the occasion. BSP members from other parts of the country, including West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh have started pouring in the city since Monday morning. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati will address the crowd.
Party chief and Uttar Pradesh chief minister said the Bahujan Samaj Party will extend support to the Union government from outside.
Close to half of the total 543 Lok Sabha seats are bracing for multi-cornered fight this time, making the contest way more interesting and intense than it was in the 2019 elections.
Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Sunday said that her party has given maximum number of tickets to Muslims and they should vote unitedly in favour of her party to save the country from the "fascist forces and dynasty rule".
On Tuesday, 49 opposition MPs were suspended for the remaining part of the session for disrupting proceedings, taking the total tally of suspended MPs in Lok Sabha to 95.
Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday said the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre was on a "ventilator", supported by Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, which were always talking about mid-term polls. BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu said the UPA government was the "worst and corrupt government," and the country hadn't had such a government since independence.
Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra on Thursday pleaded innocence to the 'cash-for-query' allegation levelled against her and told a parliamentary committee that the charge is motivated by animus of advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai after she broke off her personal relations with him, sources said.
The case pertains to the issuance of mining leases in alleged violation of e-tendering process. The Allahabad High Court had ordered the probe.
Action will be taken against such MLAs, he said.
Banda chief judicial magistrate Bhagwan Das Gupta appointed Garima Singh, additional chief judicial magistrate (MP-MLA Court Banda) as the investigating officer in the case, the official said.
While reserving the verdict, the Bench also comprising Justices H K Sema, A R Lakshmanan, P K Balasubramaniyan and D K Jain, asked the contesting parties to file written submissions by Friday.
Besides the national capital, polling 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. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
'The water crisis is so obvious that people see no point begging for it from politicians.'
Aiming at a repeat of its success in the recent Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in which it secured a majority on its own, the Bahujan Samaj Party has now started preparations for the Lok Sabha polls.
Singh, who represents the Bikapur assembly constituency in Faizabad district, had said that jobs in the BSP government were up for sale and that there was a price tag on every new appointment. "It is no secret that jobs in the present government go only to those who are ready to shell out money", he told a local gathering in Sohawal town of his constituency on Tuesday evening.
The July 5 'Bharat Bandh' to protest fuel price hike is unlikely to get the support of all non-Congress non-United Progressive Alliance parties with Bahujan Samaj Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Lok Janshakti Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal so far maintaining a silence on which side of the political divide they are.
A video had surfaced on social media which purportedly showed SP leader Mukesh Siddharth making the controversial statement.
Saturday's voting will mark the end to the marathon polling process that began on April 19 month and has already covered 486 Lok Sabha seats in 28 states and Union territories.
Several BJP voters say the Ram temple sentiment may give the ruling party a fillip but are also aware of the herculean task at hand and concede that it is a daunting electoral contest for Dinesh Singh, who lost to Sonia Gandhi in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Bansuri Swaraj, the daughter of former Union minister Sushma Swaraj, will contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls from the New Delhi seat and incumbent MP Manoj Tiwari from Northeast Delhi as the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday announced the names of five candidates from the national capital, dropping four MPs -- Meenakshi Lekhi, Harsh Vardhan, Parvesh Verma and Ramesh Bidhuri.
Accusing opposition parties of anti-dalit mentality, ruling Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh today claimed that its president Mayawati's statues were installed as per the "written will" of party founder Kanshiram.
After a photo finish in Uttarakhand, Congress, which emerged as the single largest party, is making a serious bid to rope in independents and Bahujan Samaj Party MLAs to achieve the magic tally.
With exit polls predicting a hung assembly in Uttar Pradesh, Beni Prasad Verma, Union Minister and senior Congress leader from the state, on Sunday caused a flutter in the party by favouring a tie-up with Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party, a comment from which the party quickly distanced itself.
Mayawati has accused the Mulayam Singh government of extreme laxity in the matter.
Eight Union ministers, two former chief ministers and one ex-governor are among those who are set to test their electoral fate in the first phase of elections on April 19 when 102 seats across 21 states and Union territories will go to polls.
Appealing to party workers to treat Bahujan Samaj Party's victory in Uttar Pradesh assembly elections as her birthday gift, Chief Minister and party supremo Mayawati on Sunday released a list of candidates for all 403 seats in the state.
The former UP chief minister said at this juncture that she and the entire party were in deep sorrow and could not think of anything else.
Akhilesh Yadav said those who are looking for "profit" in the situation will leave.
Meanwhile, the Congress said that that it is ready to go it alone in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha election.
