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Akhilesh says alliance with BSP to continue, willing to give it more seats
Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav has said his party was willing to sacrifice a few seats for Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to continue the alliance for 2019 Lok Sabha election to ensure BJP’s defeat.
BSP had extended support to SP candidates in bye-elections in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha seats in March that the BJP lost. A joint opposition also managed to defeat the BJP in Kairana lok Sabha by-polls.
“We are committed to the alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party and will continue working with them,” Yadav said, according to media reports. He added: “Even if we have to sacrifice two to four seats, we are not going to stop. We will bring the BJP down.”
The SP chief said the BJP lost every seat where UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath campaigned during the recent bypolls. “BJP lost the last four bypolls in UP to a united opposition. They lost the crucial Kairana LS and Noorpur assembly bypolls recently.”
In May, BJP President Amit Shah admitted that an alliance between the two Opposition parties would pose a challenge to the saffron party in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha elections.
In BSP’s national executive held last month, Mayawati had said she would ally with other parties only if her party gets “a respectable number of seats”. As her remark caused confusion among her party’s cadres as well as those of SP at the ground level, BJP workers in west UP, as a last-ditch effort to win the by-polls, were seen circulating Mayawati’s message among Dalits and trying to convince them to vote for BJP, said a report in The Times of India (TOI).
Earlier, there had been signs of souring ties when SP failed to ensure victory for BSP’s lone candidate in the Rajya Sabha elections after the Gorakhpur and Phulpur byelections.
While BJP had tried to warn Mayawati against trusting Akhilesh, she had lashed out at the ruling party, saying it would not make any difference to the closeness between the two parties, said the TOI report. “As secular forces are uniting, communal forces like BJP and RSS are becoming increasingly worried,” Mayawati had said.
An analysis of constituency-wise data from the 2017 Assembly elections, the latest in the state, shows the NDA could lose as many as 50 of its 73 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh if SP and BSP votes are combined, said a report in The Indian Express (IE). SP-BSP could win at least 57 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats, and the BJP-Apna Dal only 23.
The SP and BSP contested both 2014 and 2017 separately. The SP won five seats and BSP zero in 2014; in the Assembly elections, the SP won 47 seats and the BSP 19 in the 403-member House. The SP had an alliance with the Congress in 2017, which won seven seats. The BJP and its allies, Apna Dal and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, won 325 Assembly seats.
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Rahul Gandhi claims Congress is winning upcoming elections in Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi expressed his confidence in his party’s ability to win the upcoming legislative elections in Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan on Sunday. The Wayanad MP asserted at an event in the nation’s capital that there is no way we are not going to win any of them.
They are really close and he thinks they will be able to win, he said. Rahul Gandhi said, right now, he would say we are probably winning Telangana, they are definitely winning Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan. By the year’s conclusion, elections are scheduled for the aforementioned states, he said.
The Congress MP said that the BJP wins districts and doesn’t allow the opposition to create a narrative as an important lesson that the party learned in Karnataka, where it staged a comeback earlier this year with overwhelming majorities.
He further said, they battled in a way in Karnataka that stopped the BJP from controlling the narrative, contrary to what they did there.
Gandhi claimed that the party sought to stray from the Opposition’s call for a caste census by using the insults leveled by BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri against Bahujan Samaj Party MP Danish Ali as a distraction in the Lok Sabha.
He continued, every time we bring a topic to the table, they use this type of nonsense to divert, and they have now learned how to deal with it. They know that a caste census is a fundamental thing that the people of India want, and they don’t want to have that discussion.
Gandhi claimed that one of the key elements in Telangana, MP, and Chhattisgarh was controlling the narrative, which contributed significantly to Congress’ victory in Karnataka.
He stated, what we did in Karnataka was we provided the state with a clear vision and then we controlled the narrative.
Rahul Gandhi referred to the One Nation, one-election debate as one of the side problems the BJP used as an excuse to sidetrack from the important issues.
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Ganesh Chaturthi: Home Minister Amit Shah offers prayers at Mumbai’s Lalbaugcha Raja | Watch here
Amit Shah visited Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s official residence Varsha and offered prayers to the Ganapati idol installed there.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday visited Mumbai’s famous Lalbaugcha Raja Ganesh Pandal. On the auspicious occasion, the Home Minister along with his family offered prayers to Lord Ganesha. Every year, Amit Shah visits Lalbaugcha Raja to offer prayers to Lord Ganesha.
Lalbaugcha Raja is one of the oldest and the most popular mandals in the metropolis attracting around one crore devotees including celebrities and politicians. Celebrities who visited Lalbaugcha Raja to offer prayers to Lord Ganesh this year includes Shah Rukh Khan, Kartik Aryan, Vicky Kaushal, Pulkit Sharma, Manjot Singh and Varun Sharma, Varun Dhawan, Esha Deol, Sunny Leone, Urfi Javed among others.
Following his visit to Lalbaugcha Raja, Amit Shah visited Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s official residence Varsha and offered prayers to the Ganapati idol installed there. Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was also seen along with the Home Minister seeking blessings from Lord Ganesha.
In the evening, Amit Shah is set to take part in the Laxmanrao Inamdar Memorial lecture, which will be organized at the Sir Cowasjee Jehangir Convocation Hall on the Fort campus of Mumbai University. He will depart for Delhi at 7 pm. According to an official statement from the Mumbai University, Governor Ramesh Bais, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, Deputy CMs Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar will also attend the event.
The Memorial lecture is being conducted by the varsity in association with Sahakar Bharati, a pan-India organisation of Co-Operators and Co-Operatives, founded by Inamdar, popularly known as the ‘Vakil Saheb’ of RSS.
Earlier in the day, Union Home Minister Amit Shah was present at the first official meeting of the High-Level ‘One Nation, One Election’ Committee that took place under the chairmanship of former President Ram Nath Kovind. The first meeting was held at Jodhpur hostel.
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One Nation, One Election: Former President Ram Nath Kovind chairs first official meeting in Jodhpur
During the meeting, the members decided to hold discussion and get suggestions from the stakeholders and the political parties on the idea of the ‘one nation, one election’.
The first official meeting of the High-Level ‘One Nation, One Election’ Committee was conducted on Saturday under the chairmanship of former President Ram Nath Kovind. The first meeting was held at Jodhpur hostel. The meeting witnessed the participation of the Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal and former Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, Ghulam Nabi Azad among others.
During the meeting, the members decided to hold discussion and get suggestions from the stakeholders and recognised national political parties on the idea of the ‘one nation, one election’, according to reports. In addition, the committee members also decided that if any of the political parties want to seek an appointment with the committee, it will be allowed to give their suggestions.
The committee members also deliberated to get the views of the stakeholders like the Election Commission of India, Law Commission Of India and other bodies. Reportedly, the members also primarily discussed how the committee will function and on which issues it needs to have deliberations with the concerned to build a consensus on the idea of the ‘one nation, one election’.
Furthermore, the panel also discussed how it needs to examine various scenarios for the simultaneous elections and make recommendations on how situations like a hung assembly or adoption of a no-confidence motion will be tackled.
Along with Kovind, Azad and Shah, Congress MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, former chairman of the 15th Finance Commission N.K Singh, former Secretary General of Lok Sabha Subhash Kashyap, senior advocate Harish Salve and former Chief vigilance Commissioner Sanjay Kothari are the other names, who are the part of the eight-member panel.
However, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury declined an invitation to be part of the eight-member committee formed by the Union government to examine the ‘One nation, One election’ concept. The Congress leader also did not attend the first official meeting in Jodhpur. As per reports, the committee will look into the feasibility of holding not only Lok Sabha and assembly elections simultaneously, but also elections to municipalities and panchayats.
