Yogi Adityanath, who has been declared BJP candidate from Gorakhpur will be the second leader to contest from the district as a chief minister after Tribhuvan Narayan Singh, who lost in 1971.
How should one billion Indians, for whom deprivation has become an inescapable way of life, join us in celebrating 75 years of Independence? And where do we go from here? asks Kalyan Singhal.
The Union home minister also asserted that the 2022 Uttar Pradesh polls will lay the foundation for the BJP's victory in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Attacking the Samajwadi Party, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said it supported rioters and the mafia, and fielded criminals in western Uttar Pradesh for the assembly elections.
The party released its manifesto -- Samajwadi Vachan Patra -- for the coming assembly elections, shortly after the BJP released its own.
Within hours of announcing his plans to float a political outfit ahead of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, former IPS officer Amitabh Thakur was arrested from his residence in Lucknow on Friday on serious charges, including abetment of suicide of a rape victim and her friend in Delhi recently.
Claiming that the BJP's government's works in the three holy cities are only follow-ups of her government's initiatives, Mayawati went on to promise, in what is being seen as a subtle shift towards soft Hindutva ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, to complete all those work on time.
Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee chief Raj Babbar said, "It has been decided that she will campaign for the party in the state elections. She has accepted our request to campaign. Whenever we will get her schedule, we will use her time accordingly".
Jayant Chaudhary has plenty of time to make his own mistakes. But this election is a crucial test of his leadership.
'He is a key fulcrum point in the pan-Indian creation of an effective Opposition to the BJP.'
'Whoever thought that building toilets and providing free rations to the poorest of poor Indians would give Modi a halo other political leaders would envy?' asks Sheela Bhatt.
Several exit polls on Monday forecast a clear majority for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh and the Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab with some of them giving an edge to the saffron party in Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Samajwadi Party of talking about terrorism during the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections while diverting attention from the 'central discourse' on unemployment, inflation, empowering women and helping small businesses and farmers.
Swami Prasad Maurya's resignation has forced the BJP to focus again on its outreach among OBCs.
Measure each word you utter in public, advises Virendra Kapoor.
Campaigning came to an end on Saturday for the single-day election in Uttarakhand and Goa, two states known for political volatility where the Bharatiya Janata Party is attempting to retain power, and for the second phase of assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh on February 14.
'The Hindu electorate is more or less in the BJP defined space now.'
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.'
Whether he succeeds in becoming chief minister again or not, Akhilesh is finally out of the shadow cast by his family, but without losing a sense of balance.
'At the moment, we are supporting the Nitish Kumar-led government.' 'When the time comes for this government to fall, it will.'
Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM, which is going to contest next year's Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls on the promise of creating leadership among Muslims, has created unease in the political parties that so far considered the members of the minority community as their core "vote bank".
'I really wish I knew how to arouse love in the hearts of people, how to make them understand that religion comes later, first we are all humans.'
'Today in Uttar Pradesh all big parties like Samajwadi Party, BJP or even Bahujan Samaj Party are out to woo smaller parties as they know the Hindu votes are getting divided.'
Rahul claimed that while the Congress was asking its leaders to tour the districts, Modi was encouraging his ministers to tour 'at least two countries' each.
'Scindia did not just come to a new party, it was an ideological shift for him. In the past one and a half years, Scindia never lost communication with RSS leaders in the state. He left no stone unturned to ensure his acceptability in the party'
'A climate of impunity is created when the fascistic hate-mongers reckon they can get away with anything because 'this is our regime' and this is going to be a 'Hindu Rashtra'.'
Sources said BJP working president J P Nadda called up Singh to inform him of the party's decision and asked him to make an announcement.
The team will go into all the aspects and probe the incident till the CBI takes over the probe, the officer said.
The newly-elected members of Uttar Pradesh Assembly will take oath on April 11-12, while the Speaker would be elected on April 13, official sources said in Lucknow on Thursday.
He also claimed that corrupt persons and officials had joined hands with the government during the previous regime when Akhilesh was the chief minister and the same thing was happening in the present dispensation.
"All you have to do is to put the picture of (UP Chief Minister) Yogi (Adityanath) in front of you and Priyanka Gandhi's picture and you won't need to ask any more questions," said Khurshid, who is the chief of the party's manifesto committee for the state.
'There is a famous saying here that 'the way to Delhi passes through Lucknow'.' 'If the BJP loses UP in 2022, Modi's premiership in 2024 will be in doldrums.'
Before pedalling down the streets of the state capital, Yadav told mediapersons at the party headquarters that the BJP government has "failed" in Covid management.
'It is a well-entrenched belief in the downtrodden, the deprived sections, that Modi cares for them. He has come to occupy their mindspace as their messiah.' 'And it is this deprived, dispossessed section that is powering his electoral performance, breaking ancient shibboleths and shackles like religion and caste and region and language,' argues Saisuresh Sivaswamy.
'Akhilesh did politics like Rabi and Kharif crop which come once a year. Politics is not seasonal, you have to harvest your field all through the year and only then you get a good crop' Political analyst lists 12 reasons why Akhilesh Yadav lost the UP elections.
Can Jitin Prasada retain the BJP's Brahmin vote in UP?
Politics, bureaucracy, ineptitude, double-standards and an attempt to politicise the fight in pseudo-nationalistic terms have all hampered the fight against this deadly virus, says Vir Sanghvi.
Referring to Modi, Adityanath and Union Home Minister Amit Shah as 'outsiders', the farmer leader said he has no objection if they become prime ministers after winning polls from Uttarakhand or Gujarat.
He also said the governments of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the BSP and the SP that have ruled Uttar Pradesh in the last 32 years, when Congress was not in power, failed to live up to the expectations of the people and the Congress was set for a comeback in the state.
Tens of thousands of farmers gathered in Muzaffarnagar town on Friday to attend a mahapanchayat in support of the Bharatiya Kisan Union-led protest against the Centre's new farm laws in Ghazipur on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border.
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