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.
Yogi Adityanath was on Thursday unanimously chosen the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party legislature party in Uttar Pradesh in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
The BJP took into consideration caste and regional aspirations while picking ministers in a bid to further consolidate its hold over the politically crucial state which sends the maximum of 80 members to Lok Sabha.
Swami Prasad Maurya, who recently stirred controversy over his remarks on Ramcharitmanas, and veteran leader Azam Khan are also among the 14 national general secretaries.
A truck driver from Kerala tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar what he would like to see in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget.
Mukesh Sahni's move to contest 55 seats in the UP assembly polls antagonised top BJP leaders.
'The Mallahs may remain divided between the two competing coalitions in Bihar,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
Ravi Kishan, the BJP's candidate, is an outsider. The BSP-SP candidate is from the powerful Nishad community. Yogi faces a tough task in ensuring that the Gorakhpur seat, which he represented from 1998 to 2017, stays with the BJP.
Yogi expands UP Cabinet in attempt to balance caste, regional aspirations head of the assembly polls early next year.
Bharadwaj said it has not rained in Delhi in the last 3-4 days, yet still the water level in Yamuna reached 208.66 metres.
'Nitish is now a helpless junior ally of Hindutva.' 'He just cannot think of reining in the hoodlums raging, marauding and killing in the mohallas,' argues Mohammad Sajjad.
The monk-turned politician will take the reins of the most populous state for a second time in a row after completing his full five-year term.
Joining hands with smaller parties with a political base in different castes was a part of the BJP strategy as it won big in Uttar Pradesh in the 2017 assembly polls and 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Union minister RCP Singh, who was recently denied another term in the Rajya Sabha by the Janata Dal-United he formerly headed, should "heed the message" and resign from the cabinet, a key political aide of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has said.
Janata Dal-United on Wednesday suspended two Lok Sabha MPs, Jai Narayan Nishad and Purnmasi Ram, from the party for six years on charge of engaging in anti-party activities.
Cracking the whip, Janta Dal-United on Thursday expelled outgoing Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament and senior leader Shivanand Tiwari and four Lok Sabha MPs for anti-party activities.
So who cost the SP more seats in UP? Hemantkumar Shivsaran does a deep dive to find out.
As many as 10 ministers in the Yogi Adityanath government failed to win their seats in the 2022 assembly elections, despite the BJP registering an impressive victory.
Sharing dais with the chief minister during poll rallies, the BJP candidate is often seen standing alongside the 'maharaj' with folded hands.
Captain Jainarayan Prasad Nishad, a member of the Lok Sabha from Bihar, has written to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar against a sitting judge of the Supreme Court of India. In the letter to the Speaker, Captain Nishad has expressed his 'determination' to initiate impeachment proceeding against the judge.
The JD-U insisted that its decision to fight the polls independently will have no impact on its ties with the BJP in Bihar.
The Congress and the Left parties have not only extended support to the Samajwadi Party candidate but are also campaigning for him, in accordance with the spirit of the new opposition togetherness ahead of next year's general election.
Spread over 10 districts, polling in these constituencies will be held from 7 am till 6 pm on Thursday.
rivals Congress, JMM and TMC and Samajwadi Party.
The sixth round of Uttar Pradesh assembly polls will see voting for 57 seats on Thursday sealing the fate of political heavyweights such as Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the Congress' Ajay Kumar Lallu and Samajwadi Party's Swami Prasad Maurya.
The districts where polling is being held on Thursday are Ambedkar Nagar, Balrampur, Siddharth Nagar, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria and Ballia.
The Congress, meanwhile, alleged that both the Samajwadi Party and the BJP are hand-in-glove with the criminals and were two sides of the same coin.
'Yogi Adityanath is working for one caste only and suppressing the others,' Bihar Minister and NDA ally Mukesh Sahni tells M I Khan.
The JD-U, may be the BJP's partner for now. But it is a party at all only because of Nitish Kumar. The day Nitish Kumar exits, the JD-U will split into hundreds of pieces. Obviously, Prashant Kishor is setting himself up as the vessel that will collect all the pieces and put them together in some sort of political instrument, explains Aditi Phadnis.
The two parties had fallen out with each other in October last year when the RJD unilaterally decided to contest by-elections for two assembly seats, evoking strong protest from the Congress which vowed to go it alone in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the assembly elections which will be held a year later.
A banker from Jaipur in Rajasthan tells Rediff.com's A Ganesh Nadar what he would like to see in Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget.
While a few 'bahubalis' managed wins in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, a majority of them were rejected by the voters. According to the results, many alleged dons-turned-politicians failed to make it to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly.
A video of the incident which occurred at around 6:25 AM shows a cow darting towards the road when it was hit by the vehicle carrying Ahmed. The cow fell near the road divider. After the incident, the vehicle stopped for a while before resuming the onward journey.
'We will interrogate and punish the guilty.' 'Please don't use this case as a Maharashtra versus Bihar issue.' 'This is the most deplorable thing to do.'
Justice Ajay Kumar Tripathy ordered the issuing of notices to Ansari and the Secretary General of the Upper House after hearing a petition filed by Nishad challenging his termination as Rajya Sabha member. Justice Tripathy asked them to explain their stand on the matter and fixed May 14 as the next date of hearing of the case. The order was passed on Wednesday.
In his maiden foray in the state election, Yadav won from the Karhal assembly seat by a margin of 67,504 votes.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Saturday
The bypolls were conducted for two Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, one each in Meghalaya and Odisha and the Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency in Punjab.
This election has some striking resemblances to the landmark one of 1977, with sub-caste combinations and antipathies still the bedrock of measures
