The Samajwadi Party has drawn up an action plan to wrest the maximum number of seats from the Bharatiya Janata Party in the coming bye-elections for 11 Assembly seats on September 13. In the 2012 Assembly elections, 10 of these 11 seats were won by the BJP and one by its ally, Apna Dal.
The Samajwadi Party would want to win as many seats just to prove that the BJP’s victory in State in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections was a flash in the pan, party sources claimed. The bypolls have been necessitated following the resignation of the sitting MLAs after they were elected to the Lok Sabha this year.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav will not campaign in the Assembly polls, but over a dozen Ministers of his cabinet have been assigned the responsibility of supervising and monitoring the campaign. The Ministers have been given charge of individual Assembly constituencies with clear instructions from the Samajwadi Party president, Mulayam Singh, that they would be prima facie held accountable in case the party loses. This has come directly from the party president at a recent election review meeting here, thus making, the bypolls a litmus test for the Ministers in-charge.
According to SP sources, Cabinet Ministers including, Ahmed Hasan, Ambika Chaudhary, Abhishek Mishra, Arvind Singh “Gope”, Balram Yadav, Shahid Manzoor, Ram Gobind Chaudhary and Durga Prasad Yadav have been made constituency in charge by the Samajwadi Party chief. Other Ministers like Mehboob Ali, Bhagwat Sharan Gangwar, Raj Kishore Singh, Gayatri Prasad Prajapati, Narad Rai and Vinod Kumar Singh alias Pandit Singh have also been put on the job.
“The Ministers have been given the responsibility of working towards its success in the bypolls,” said the SP spokesman and Political Pensions Minister, Rajendra Chaudhary.
For making the campaigning more effective, especially at the booth level, each Assembly constituency has been divided into sectors with the Ministers in-charge in a supervisory role.
Senior Ministers Shivpal Singh Yadav and Mohammad Azam Khan have not been assigned any particular constituency, but have been allowed to campaign in accordance with the wishes of the party leadership. Mr. Yadav, who has been actively campaigning in Mainpuri for his grand nephew, Tej Pratap Singh Yadav. He addressed two election meetings in Balha and Nighasan on Saturday. Mr. Azam Khan addressed an election meeting in Bijnor a couple of days back.
Meanwhile, Mr. Chaudhary said the Chief Minister “will only campaign in Mainpuri where the Lok Sabha is being held along with the Assembly bypolls.” Mr. Akhilesh Yadav will address poll meetings in Mainpuri on September 10 while Mr. Mulayam Singh will address five election meetings in Mainpuri on September 7 and 8, Mr. Chaudhary added.
