Lucknow: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati is determined to use the Dalit-Upper Caste (to be read as Brahmins)-Muslim combination for electoral gains in next year's Assembly elections.

The first list containing the names of 200 BSP candidates for the forthcoming elections, which were declared by her in Lucknow on Thursday, was loaded in favour of Brahmins and other Upper Castes. Around 20 to 30 per cent of the candidates were drawn from this segment.

Though the names have not been officially declared the mere fact that the names were announced at the party meeting on Thursday set to rest all speculation. The second list of the remaining 203 candidates would be declared after the receipt of the party moderators' report.

The first list includes the names of around 40 sitting and former MLAs who left the Samajwadi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party to join the BSP. For instance, Ms. Mayawati has given the ticket to Mahesh Trivedi for the Derapur Assembly seat in Kanpur Dehat district. Mr. Trivedi was till Thursday a Samajwadi Party MLA and chairman of the Non-Conventional Energy Development Agency (NEDA). But once his ticket was finalised he quit as NEDA chairman.

Incidentally, the sitting SP MLA from Derapur, Kamlesh Pathak, who is also in line for a BSP nomination has been assured a ticket from a neighbouring and Brahmin-dominated constituency.

Another rebel SP MLA, Omwati, has been given the ticket from Nagina (Reserved) constituency in Bijnore district. The former BJP MLA from Maudaha, Badshah Singh, is being fielded from the same constituency, albeit on a BSP ticket.

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