No official candidate, BSP in pact with several parties

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, December 14

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), whose vote share fell to just 1.5 per cent in the state Assembly elections, is trying another trick to retain its face in the ongoing civic polls.

The party, which has had a sizable following among Dalits in the Doaba belt, has not fielded any candidate on its symbol. It has given freedom to its non-official 18 candidates in Jalandhar and 11 in Amritsar to tie-up with various parties at the local level and bring results.

In one such instance, the BSP, AAP and the Lok Insaaf Party are jointly supporting Anita Rani from Ward no. 12 in Goraya. As AAP state convener Bhagwant Mann and co-convener Aman Arora addressed a few rallies here yesterday, they also went to Goraya where they shared stage with BSP leaders, including state secretary Tirath Rajpura, Doaba zone incharge Parveen Banga, district incharge Ramesh Garha and cashier Babu Sunderpal.

Similar pacts with different parties have come to light through hoardings and posters elsewhere too. The publicity material of Suman Abdal, a joint candidate of BSP, AAP and CPI from Ward no. 13 in Amritsar, bears pictures of both AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal and BSP supremo Mayawati.

BSP state president Rashpal Raju said: “I have given them clear instructions to the party cadre to ensure the victory of our candidates. They have freedom to experiment by way of pact with other parties. We have common candidates with AAP in four wards. There are pacts with other parties as well.”