Playing to the Hindutva gallery, newly-appointed Bharatiya Janata Party secretary Varun Gandhi demanded a ban on cow slaughter and vowed to give UP Chief Minister Mayawati, who had jailed him for his hate speeches against Muslims, the same treatment meted out to him.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Tuesday that Uttar Pradesh is a "victim of short sighted politics" but refrained from blaming its Chief Minister Mayawati for it.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Friday opened a new front with the Congress when the administation cancelled an interaction by Rahul Gandhi with students of the Chandrashekhar Azad University in Kanpur on Friday. Rahul Gandhi drove straight from the airport to the university where he found the doors of the auditorium, where he was scheduled to hold the interaction, locked.
BKU leader Mahendra Singh Tikait, accused of making casteist remarks against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, was granted bail after he surrendered in the district court in Bijnore. Tikait, whose arrest attempt by police had sparked violence in Sisauli, the headquarters of the BKU on Monday, later regretted his comments and said it was a slip of tongue.
Tension prevailed in Sisoli village in Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh after supporters of Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Mahender Singh Tikait clashed with police trying to arrest him for allegedly making derogatory remarks against state Chief Minister Mayawati, leaving a dozen policemen injured. Uttar Pradesh government has sounded an alert in all the districts of Western Uttar Pradesh and paramilitary forces rushed to the area to avoid any untoward incident.
The Congress took a jibe at rebel Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh for his remark that he could understand Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's "pain" when she was "humiliated" by Mulayam Singh Yadav, saying it took him a long time to understand it.
As if Rs 6,000 crores already spent was not enough, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Friday told the state assembly that all the memorials and statues erected by her in Lucknow and in Noida would not put any further drain on the state exchequer.
The Telugu Desam president and a leading figure in the third front N Chandrababu Naidu has ruled out the possibility of any body being projected as the prime ministerial candidate of the third front before the elections.
A day after opposition members disrupted assembly proceedings over a CD allegedly containing objectionable references towards the characters in the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, the Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday recommended a CBI inquiry into the matter.
The opposition BJP today sought to brand Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati as a "new-age Shahjahan" apparently over spending of a huge amount of money over setting up of parks and memorials in the state.
It will be starting from the scratch for several leaders, big and small, with the redrawing of Parliamentary constituencies as their pocket boroughs have disappeared following the delimitation exercise.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Monday announced the state would revise the salary of an estimated 721,000 employees on the lines of the pay panel recommendations. The state commission, headed by Jagmohan Lal Bajaj, will submit a report on pay revision by December. The additional financial burden is estimated at Rs 5,189 crore (Rs 51.89 billion) per annum excluding arrears payment, which is pegged at Rs 14,775 crore (Rs 147.75 billion).
Additional District Judge Sudha Sharma passed the order and fixed July 29 as the next date of hearing.
Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi was on Saturday granted interim bail by a local court in a case relating to derogatory remarks against Chief Minister Mayawati. The release order has been sent to the district jail, where she has been lodged after she was arrested under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act for allegedly making derogatory remarks against Mayawati.
The Supreme Court on Monday adjourned the hearing of the five-year-old disproportionate assets case against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati for six weeks. The hearing of the case was deferred at the request of the Uttar Pradesh government.On Saturday, the Central Bureau of Investigation had informed the apex court that it had prepared a charge-sheet against Mayawati.
"If it has been approved by the government, this court cannot interfere," a bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan said, when an application seeking to maintain the status quo on the works was mentioned before it.
Congress leaders Digvijay Singh, Sachin Pilot and Rita Bahuguna Joshi were arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police at the Delhi border on Tuesday, when they were going towards state Chief Minister Mayawati's village to protest against the 'coercive' acquisition of land.The leaders were prevented at the Delhi-UP border by the UP police from going towards Badalpur, the village of Mayawati, where the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee has organised a 'Kisan Sangharsh Rally'.
The Supreme Court on Monday admitted petitions filed by Bahujan Samaj Party leaders, challenging the quashing of charges against Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and other top party leaders--in a case relating to an alleged assault on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati in Lucknow in 1995.
The Lok Sabha was adjourned till 2 pm by Speaker Somnath Chatterjee after angry members of the Bahujan Samaj Party continued to interrupt Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi's speech during the trust vote debate on Tuesday.Gandhi, who started his speech by saying, " I am not going to speak as the leader of a political party but as an Indian," was repeatedly interrupted by noisy protests from the Opposition benches.
Come January 15 and it is not unusual for Bahujan Samaj Party president and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati to show her paranoia invariably on account of the perennial accusation that the collection of money for her birthday 'gift', more often than not, culminates into extortion.
Acting on a PIL, the Supreme Court on Monday issued a show-cause notice to the Uttar Pradesh government, for using public money for installing statues of Chief Minister Mayawati at a whopping cost of Rs 1000 crore.
The investigating agency filed an affidavit in the apex court saying it will shortly file a chargesheet in the disproportionate assets case registered against the Bahujan Samaj Party supremo in 2003.
India should dread the prospect of being governed by the dictatorial Mallika-e-Hindustan!
In her bid to ward off the common impression that her administration was doing a wishy-washy job in the murder of a PWD engineer by a ruling Bahjan Samaj Party (BSP) MLA, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Wednesday ordered suspension of Auraiya district superintendent of police Ekramul Haque and dismissal of three other cops for their alleged complacence in the case.
In a desperate bid to give herself a clean-chit and clear herself of the charge that the engineer lost his life for refusing to concede the MLA's demand for money required to fill the coffers for Mayawati's birthday celebrations on January 15, she also hit out at the opposition for maligning her.
The results of the Assembly polls in five states might be far below her much-touted proclamations over the recent past, yet Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati says she was "quite satisfied with the results".
Evidently, she has a soft corner for Nishad, who will be now facing just a simple magisterial inquiry. Interestingly, Mayawati claimed , "I wanted to hand over this case to the CBI, as I do not want my adversaries to accuse my administration of bias; but considering that CBI had been consistently turning down all our recommendations, I chose to order a magisterial probe into the incident."
The occasion, which brought Yadav, a former chief minister, and the Bahujan Samaj Party supremo together was a meeting convened to finalise nominees for the State Human Rights Commission. The arch rivals had parted ways following the collapse of their coalition government in 1995 and have been bitter critics attacking each other and rarely acknowledging even the presence of the other at public functions.
Former Congressman Akhilesh Das, who was formally inducted into the BSP in Lucknow Saturday, has already begun to sing paeans for his new political mentor - Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati. Das made it a point to repay Mayawati for the significant position of BSP's national general secretary that was conferred on him. "If there is anyone truly deserving to occupy the country's highest office of prime miniter, it is none other than Behen Mayawati," he said.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Saturday accused Mahatma Gandhi of dividing the country on caste lines and coining "an uncontitutional term" to denote Dalits.
The National Commission for Scheduled Castes has decided to summon BKU leader Mahendra Singh Tikait for allegedly making casteist remarks against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati at a rally in Bijnore district on March 30. The Commission had issued a notice to the BKU leader on the basis of the FIR report as the district administration failed to provide the full text of Tikait's speech.
CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat on Wednesday met BSP supremo and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati at her official residence in Lucknow and is understood to have discussed the country's political situation with her.
Addressing media persons in Lucknow, Mayawati said, "The Congress is worried only about Rae Bareli, but I am worried about the whole of Uttar Pradesh." Denying allegations of Sonia that her government was against development, Mayawati alleged that the Congress had put impediments in state government's schemes like Ganga and Yamuna expressways.
"Whatever rights Dalits and backwards had is due to Bhim Rao Ambedkar and there is no contribution of the Nehru-Gandhi family," Mayawati said while addressing a gathering after inaugurating the 'Bhim Rao Ambedkar Samajik Parivartan Sthal' in Lucknow. She alleged that 'Congress and company' had conspired against Ambedkar so that he could not become a member of the Constituent Assembly.
"The government will establish an Arabic-Persian university in state capital Lucknow and we have allocated Rs 10 crore for the purpose. Besides, the number of madrasas on government grant-list will also be increased from 360 to 460," Mayawati said, addressing a national convention on the 'Problems of Muslim Community: Reasons and Solutions' in Lucknow.
The spectre of a bloody showdown between Uttar Pradesh police and supporters of farmers leader Mahendra Singh Tikait, holed up at a village near Muzaffarnagar, loomed large on Tuesday night as he refused to surrender for allegedly making casteist remarks against Chief Minister Mayawati. The state government amassed around 10,000 policemen and paramilitary personnel around Sisoli village where Tikait is holed up along with an estimated 4,000 activists of the BKU.
Reacting sharply to the political and economic resolutions passed in the Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee convention at Kanpur, she said the Centre has not taken any decision regarding the Rs 80,000 crore package demanded for removal of economic backwardness of the Purvanchal and Bundelkhand areas of the state. "It shows how Congress was serious regarding the problems of the state," she said.
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the Uttar Pradesh government's petition against Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan, relating to the Barabanki land deal. The two judge bench headed by Chief Justice Justice K G Balakrishnan dismissed the petition filed by the UP government, which challenged the Allahabad High Court's order restraining it from initiating any criminal, civil or revenue proceedings against Bachchan in the case.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Wednesday decided to withdraw the state's plea for the enactment of the Uttar Pradesh Control of Organised Crime Act."Since such a law was already in existence in Maharashtra, we felt that it would be effective in Uttar Pradesh as well. But the Home ministry continued to put hurdles in our path and did not allow the bill to be cleared," she said.