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UP by-elections a prestige issue for ruling BSP

Lucknow: The by-elections to 11 state Assembly and one Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday have become a prestige issue for the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), with around 40 ministers deployed in various constituencies to ensure victory of the party nominees.

The ministers, who have been camping in the constituencies for some time, are aware that their own future is at stake along with that of the candidates, as party chief and Chief Minister Mayawati is understood to have told them that their continuance in the government would depend on their success in the by-polls.

Ms. Mayawati herself was not involved in the campaign. “Behenji had been too busy, so she was unable to devote much time for the by-elections,” a BSP source told IANS.

However, the BSP is upbeat about its chances.

A prominent Cabinet colleague of Ms. Mayawati claimed: “We will definitely win more than 50 percent of the seats. After all we bagged three of the four seats to which by-elections were held in September.”

Even as the state’s leading opposition party, the Samajwadi Party, has fielded candidates in all the 12 seats, its focus was in Firozabad Lok Sabha constituency where party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav’s daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav is in the fray.

Ms. Dimple is locked in a virtually straight contest with Congress nominee Raj Babbar, who after losing at the last General Election from Agra, was trying his luck from the adjoining Firozabad seat.

The seat was vacated by Ms. Dimple’s husband Akhilesh Yadav, who had romped home from two seats.

The Congress party, that sprung a major surprise at the April-May parliamentary elections, is leaving no stone unturned to repeat its performance at the by-polls, which party leaders consider as a precursor to the next state Assembly elections in 2012.

Other than the Firozabad Lok Sabha seat and Lucknow West assembly seat, the other assembly seats going to poll are Puwayan (Shahjahanpur), Isauli (Sultanpur), Hainsar Bazar (Sant Kabirnagar), Padrauna (Kushinagar), Kolasala (Varanasi), Rari (Jaunpur), Etawah, Bhartana (Etawah), Lalitpur and Jhansi. - IANS

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