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D. P. Yadav trying his luck from Sahaswan

Badaun: As Uttar Pradesh goes to the third phase of Assembly polls on Wednesday, an interesting battle is on the cards in the Sahaswan Assembly seat adjacent to Gunnaur, from where Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav is seeking re-election, with controversial Rashtriya Parivartan Dal president D P Yadav entering into the fray.

D P Yadav, who had once been very close to Mr. Singh, has this time round chalked out a strategy to score a point by not just taking the likes of Imam Ahmed Bukhari, Jan Morcha, Lok Janshakti and CPI along but also weaning away a section of the Muslims and Samajwadi workers. Realising that Muslims are the deciding factor in the constituency as in all the other constituencies of the district except Gunnaur, Mr. Yadav has weaned away Nooruddin, the former representative of local Samajwadi Party MP, Salim Sherwani. Samajwadi Party has not fielded any Muslim in the district and this has not gone down well with the community. With the help of the Imami, Mr. Yadav is determined to make a mark. Taking whirlwind tour of the district through a helicopter, Mr. Yadav addresses eight to ten election meetings daily and is trying hard to strike an emotional chord with the electorate, specially women, speaking at length about his alleged harassment and jail term during the Mulayam rule. Mr. Yadav's son Vikas is the main accused in the Nitish Katara murder case and was convicted in the assassination of model Jessica Lal.

Samajwadi Party's prestige is also at stake in the constituency which was represented by Mulayam Singh in 1996. The party has fielded its sitting MLA Omkar Singh Yadav who is also the relative of district president and Minister Banvari Singh Yadav. Though on papers Samajwadi Party's support based on the backing of Yadavs and 50 thousand Muslims appears formidable, it is the strategic fielding of nominees by political rivals like BSP's Mir Yusuf Ali, JD (U)-BJP combine's Babar Mian, Congress' Rishipal Singh and RLD's Veer Pal Kashyap which could be the deciding factor.

The constituency has a total of over 2.40 lakh voters of which higher castes comprise 36,357 but it is the Yadavs who make the biggest vote bank followed by Muslims. Since independence, the seat had been won ten times by a Yadav candidate, five times by Muslims and once by a Vaishya. PTI

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