With his prestige at stake in Mainpuri, considered to be his political bastion, Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh will hit the campaign trail on Sunday in support of his grand-nephew, Tej Pratap Singh Yadav, in the forthcoming Lok Sabha by-poll on September 13. Mr. Singh is scheduled to address five election meetings in two days.
Samajwadi Party spokesman and Political Pensions Minister Rajendra Chaudhary said three election meetings would be addressed by Mr. Singh in Kasman Bazar, Kishni and Bhogaon on September 7. Two elections meetings would be addressed in Jaswantnagar and Mainpuri town on September 8.
By-election in Mainpuri has been necessitated by Mr. Singh’s resignation from the seat after the Lok Sabha elections. Since, he was elected from Mainpuri and Azamgarh, he preferred to retain the latter seat. By fielding his grand-nephew in the by-election, Mr. Singh has made it clear that he wanted the seat to remain with the Yadav family. However, following the Bharatiya Janata Party’s runaway victory in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha polls, political pundits claim that it may not be a cakewalk for Mr. Singh’s grand-nephew, notwithstanding the fact that the SP chief had won by over three lakh votes.
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Mr. Singh has been elected four times from Mainpuri in 1996, 2004, 2009 and 2014. He had earlier vacated the seat in 2004 since he preferred to continue as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. His nephew and Budaun MP Dharmendra Yadav was elected from Mainpuri in the subsequent by poll in 2004.
Mainpuri is a Yadav-dominated constituency which also boasts of a sizeable section of Thakur voters. The Samajwadi Party’s aim is clearly to woo the dominant Yadav voters as is evident from the focus of the party’s electioneering which is aimed at exposing the BJP’s game plan.
Addressing over a dozen meetings in and around Saifai (the Yadav family’s home village is in the Mainpuri Parliamentary constituency) on Monday, Mr. Singh’s brother and Public Works Department Minister Shivpal Singh Yadav said the BJP’s caste card would be defeated by Mainpuri voters on September 13. Mr. Yadav claimed that Mr. Tej Pratap Yadav’s victory margin would be better than Mr. Mulayam Singh’s.
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The electoral contest in Mainpuri is likely to be a straight fight between the SP and the BJP, though Bahujan Samaj Party presiden, Mayawati’s decision to support the Independents — the BSP is not contesting — seems to have enthused the candidates. The BJP has given the ticket to an OBC, Prem Singh Shakya, who joined the party in 2004 and runs a institution in the area. The BJP is banking on the Upper Caste and OBC voters, including the Yadavs, who are alleged to have supported the party in the 2014 LS polls.