The Samajwadi Party is banking on the “achievements” of the Akhilesh Yadav government’s two years in office to achieve its objective of getting the better of its political adversaries — the BJP, the BSP, the Congress and the RLD — in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. Its poll process in the State commenced with nominations opening on Saturday for the 10 seats in western Uttar Pradesh which go to the polls in the first phase on April 10. It coincided with the government completing two years.
The 10 seats — Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Bulandshahr (reserved) and Aligarh — are located in what is known as the Jat-Muslim belt. With a sizeable number of Muslim voters, the electoral battle in these seats would be a litmus test for the SP, which won only one of them (Bulandshahr) in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. The party’s poll prospects were somewhat boosted when the sitting Bahujan Samaj Party MP from Kairana, Tabassum Hasan, joined the SP on Friday.
Mr. Yadav said the SP is ahead of other parties. “The party’s objective is to win a large number of seats and it is hoped that the faith shown by the people in the 2012 Assembly polls will be replicated in the Lok Sabha election.”
