UP chief minister Mayawati has finally put her legislators on the chopping block. After declaring that all sitting BSP MLAs would be re-nominated for the next Assembly elections, Ms Mayawati has started weeding out the “deadwood” from the party.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s ambitious Gaon Chalo Abhiyan is fast losing steam in Uttar Pradesh.
The programme that began on December 15 with the intention of making inroads into the rural interiors and expanding party’s base in the state where elections are due in 2012, is petering out.

Bowing to mounting pressure from the Opposition, UP chief minister Mayawati on Sunday suspended the BSP MLA from Banda, Purshottam Naresh Dwiwedi, who is an accused in the rape of a minor dalit girl.

The National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) is all set to give the Mayawati government a “taxing” time in the New Year.

The rape of a dalit girl, allegedly by the BSP MLA from Banda, is snowballing into a major political controversy with all major political parties using the issue to embarrass the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party.

The advent of 2011 in Uttar Pradesh will mark the beginning of a battle between all major political parties that will culminate in the next Assembly elections.
Though the next Assembly polls are scheduled in early 2012, the battle for power will begin in right earnest from January.

Ten-year-old Sushma Varma is the youngest member to enrol for a graduation course in science from the Lucknow University.
It was on Tuesday that the university decided to allow admission to the young girl who had passed intermediate examination this year.

Yet another BSP MLA has been accused of allegedly raping a minor girl belonging to the Nishad community. To make matters worse, it is the “gulabi gang, a group of woman activists in the region, which has decided to take up cudgels on behalf of the victim and fight against the offender.

Casteism has been played out but communalism remains a bigger draw in UP politics and major political parties in the state are beginning to realise this.
Political parties are now trying to pay the communal card in order to expand their base in the next Assembly elections. The Muslim vote bank, expectedly, is up for grabs and making a bid for it are the Samajwadi Party, Congress and the BSP.

UP chief minister Mayawati is losing more and more of her ministers and legislators to crime and corruption.
The chief minister, till now, has shown the door to half a dozen ministers who have faced allegations of crime and corruption and nearly a dozen BSP MLAs are facing serious charges on these two counts.