BSP to fight 38 LS seats, SP 37 in UP

Shahira Naim
Tribune News Service
Lucknow, February 21

It is now clear that a Samajwadi Party candidate would be in fight against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in Lucknow. 

Under the joint signatures of SP national president Akhilesh Yadav and BSP supremo Mayawati a list of division of seats was released on Thursday giving 37 seats to SP and 38 to BSP.

Five Lok Sabha seats which did not find figure in the list and are being presumed to be going to the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) — Baghpat, Muzaffarnagar and Mathura, and two to the Congress party – Amethi and Rae Bareli.

According to the list, the SP gets most of the urban seats like Moradabad, Ghaziabad, Bareilly, Kanpur, Jhansi, Allahabad, Faizabad, Gorakhpur and Varanasi. 

In the BSP’s share of seats, there are cities like Saharanpur, Meerut, Agra, Gautama Buddha Nagar, but the majority of seats are semi-urban or rural.

A cursory analysis of the seats shows that both the parties have not divided the seats strictly on the basis of the earlier announced formula of the party’s performance in 2014.

For instance, in the SP’s share there are 13 seats where they were not the runner-ups in 2014. Some significant among them are Hathras (reserved), Khiri, Hardoi, Mirzapur, Banda, Robertsganj, Maharajganj and Chandauli. Seats like Ghaziabad, Kanpur, Barabanki where the Congress was number two in 2014 has also gone to the SP this time.

Similarly, the BSP’s share of 38 seats has 14 seats where it was not number two in 2014. In Bijnore, Hamirpur, Qaiserganj, Shravasti, Basti, Lalganj (reserved) Ghazipur and Bhadohi the SP came second, while the Congress was the runner-up in the Saharanpur seat.

SP being finished by our own: MSY

• SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Thursday expressed his dissatisfaction at the SP-BSP alliance, saying that it has reduced the party to half and given the advantage to BJP 
• Speaking to party workers, he said: “Inhone (referring to Akhilesh) samjhauta kiya hai Mayawati ke saath...party ko kaun khatam kar raha hai --- apne hi log khatam kar rahe hain”
• He also grumbled about being the SP’s patron without any clear cut duty and expressed his anguish at the delay in the ticket distribution 

Eyes on Priyanka, will she contest?

• Now all eyes are on AICC general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh East Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who has denied any intention to contest the Lok Sabha election
• However, a section within the Congress is hopeful that she would relent to the popular demand to contest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi
•  If the AICC general secretary in-charge decides to contest the election from Uttar Pradesh, she would also have a Samajwadi Party candidate to contend with