After serious drubbing during 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the opposition parties are gearing up for by-polls for 12 assembly seats. The vacancies were caused as 11 MLAs including eight from BJP and three from the opposition were elected to Lok Sabha. The election of BJP MLA was set aside following his conviction in a murder case.
The 11constituencies vacant due to Lok Sabha polls are Iglas, Zaidpur, Balha, Tundla, Manikpur, Gangoh, Rampur, Jalalpur, Pratapgarh, Lucknow cantonment and Govind Nagar.
The main opposition party, Samajwadi Party, came into action only when it’s national President Akhilesh Yadav returned to India after a vacation abroad. Samajwadi Party is the only party where there has been no review of the poor performance of the party in Lok Sabha polls. Samajwadi Party national President and former Chief Minister, Akhilesh Yadav, has not convened party meeting or met defeated candidates.
More so, Akhilesh Yadav did not address the media so far since the results for Lok Sabha were declared. Two days back, Samajwadi Party invited the applications for party candidates for 12 by-polls for assembly polls. Samajwadi Party spokesman Rajendra Choudhry said that booth committee s at 12 assembly constituencies facing by-polls would be reorganised.
Samajwadi Party is in the process to reactivate the party organisation and appoint the party incharges in all the 12 assembly constituencies. Akhilesh Yadav faces the biggest challenge in the shape of by-polls especially after poor performance and break up with the BSP. Samajwadi Party will have to woo the minority community once again as Mayawati charged Akhilesh Yadav that he was against giving more tickets to Muslim in Lok Sabha polls.
It would be mentioned here that Samajwadi Party won only five Lok Sabha seats including two from the family including himself and father Mulayam Singh Yadav. Bahujan Samaj Party has taken lead over other parties as far as preparations for assembly by-polls. Mayawati unilaterally terminated the alliance with Samajwadi Party after the results were announced. BSP national President Mayawati announced that her party will contest all the by-polls. This is for the first time that BSP will contest by-polls.
Mayawati has already conducted a series of meetings in Delhi and Lucknow and appointed party observers in all the 12 constituencies. She has asked party workers to spread the message of good work done during her previous governments. So much so, that Mayawati effected changes in her party and made her younger brother, Anand, as the vice president and Akash as national coordinator.
Congress, under the leadership of Priyanka Gandhi, has started taking incharge in all the 12 assembly constituencies facing by-polls. Priyanka Gandhi has appointed two observers in each constituency who are making preparations by holding small meetings.
It is a well-known fact that last trump card of Congress misfired when Priyanka Gandhi failed to win seats for Congress in UP. She could not ensure victory for her brother Rahul Gandhi who lost in Amethi. Now once again Priyanka Gandhi has been given the responsibility to revive the party in UP and to form the government in 2022 assembly polls.
Om Prakash Rajbhar President of Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party which came out of NDA just before Lok Sabha polls also announced to contest by-polls independently. Rajbhar has tremendous appeal in most backwards in eastern UP.
-Pradeep Kapoor
The writer is a freelance journalist. Views are personal.
