SP candidate Tej Pratap Singh Yadav submits his nomination papers in lieu of polling in front of party chief Akhilesh Yadav. | Photo Credit: PTI
Naval Shakya, a Samajwadi Party (SP) worker from the capital of Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow, is busy attending at least 8-10 political meetings every day in the Mainpuri constituency Assembly seat in Karhal for the November 20 by-election. “I have participated in ‘Nukkad Sabhas’ since 9 am hoping that my hard work will pay off with a historic victory for the candidate on November 23,” he said.
Ever since the bypoll was announced, thousands of SP workers have been camping in Mainpuri town and regularly visit Karhal, which is 4 km away from party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s seat, Saifai, in Etawah district and part of the five Assembly constituencies. of his wife Dimple Yadav’s Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency.
This district saw the arrival of SP and BJP leaders and workers in large numbers to campaign for the candidates who are required to be elected due to the resignation of the sitting Member of Parliament Mr. Akhilesh after being elected as Member of Parliament from Kannauj in Lok. Take a poll. “We have never seen the union of political workers in the previous elections and during the rule of the SPs. In this case, MLAs interact with voters in small houses for hours,” said Ram Sharan, a local trader.
It’s a family affair
The bypoll is a family affair where Tej Pratap Singh Yadav, SP candidate and nephew of Mr. Akhilesh, against BJP’s Anujesh Pratap Singh, who left SP in 2017 and is married to Sandhya Yadav, sister of Dharmendra Yadav, SP MP from Azamgarh and cousin of Mr. Akhilesh.
“Our relationship with the people of Karhal is like family. Netaji (SP founder late Mulayam Singh Yadav) shared a bond with the people even before he entered politics,” said Mr Tej Pratap Singh, former MLA from Mainpuri and son-in-law of RJD leader Lalu Prasad.
The SP leadership is leaving no stone unturned to retain the Yadav-held seat, which has been the party’s stronghold since 1993. In the 2002 Assembly elections, the seat went to BJP’s Sobaran Singh Yadav but he later joined the SP. The party leaders and workers go door to door in their pockets and hold 8-10 ‘Jansampark’ and ‘Nukkad’ meetings every day in groups of 15 to 20 people with the aim of strengthening their relationship with the voters. Senior State party leaders like SP general secretary Shivpal Singh Yadav and Lok Sabha members Ms. Dimple and Mr. Dharmendra conducted rallies focused on the villages.
The party is looking to win over a million votes and aims to strengthen its social base with its PDA slogan, the acronym for ‘Pichde (backward classes)’, Dalits, and ‘Alpsankhyak (minors)’ coined during the Assembly polls in 2022 by an SP official. In the Assembly elections, Mr Akhilesh won from Karhal by more than 67,000 votes. “We want to win by breaking all previous records. It is time to build on the momentum after our performance in the Lok Sabha elections,” said Javier Singh, another SP worker.
In its daily outreach programs, the Opposition is deploying the PDA plank in an attempt to mobilize the non-Yadav Other Backward Classes (OBCs), especially the Shakya community, which has a large population in the area.
Party workers from the Shakya and Dalit communities were sent to areas dominated by these community groups. The focus on the Shakya community is also due to the entry of Bahujan Samaj Party councilor Avinash Kumar Shakya, who is trying to tap into the SP vote bank.
After the Yadavs, the Shakyas are numerically the second largest group in Karhal. Of the 3.75 lakh voters, over 1.25 lakh are Yadavs, while 70,000 are Shakyas.
The BJP, the biggest challenger, is reaching out to the Yadavs, with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath at his recent campaign rally in Karhal saying that while the BJP respects people’s sentiments about Lord Krishna in Mathura, the SP is silent on the issue. it is more concerned about its vote bank. “The people of Karhal should tell them [SP] that if you can’t respect Krishna-Kanhaiya, why did you come to seek our votes? BJP had promised to build a temple in Ayodhya and we did that. Shri Krishna-Kanhaiya will come, we will respect the sentiments of the people in Mathura too,” he said.
BJP leaders also praised the late Mulayam Singh Yadav while criticizing the current SP leadership for “surrendering to the Congress, the patriarch of the party which it did not want to trust”. Congress is not against the polls, but is supporting SP, its ally in INDIA.
Published – November 12, 2024 01:10 am IST
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