By IANS,
Lucknow : The by-elections to 11 state assembly and one Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh Saturday have become a prestige issue for the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), with around 40 ministers deployed to 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 supremo 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.
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 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.
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 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.
“The outcome of these by-elections will set the pace for the next state assembly election here two and a half years from now,” senior Congress leader Pramod Tiwari told IANS.
As for the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), a sharp division in the rank and file is bound to adversely affect its prospects. Several prominent leaders kept themselves away from the campaign.
In Lucknow West, BJP nominee Amit Puri went about campaigning in a “kurta”, which he claimed was “gifted” to him by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He was also seen displaying an appeal signed by Vajpayee, who held the Lucknow parliamentary seat for four successive times.
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.
The fate of 177 candidates would be sealed in ballot boxes by some 4.9 million voters at 5,616 polling stations spread across the 12 constituencies.
“Elaborate arrangements are in place to maintain a strict vigil over the entire by-elections for which 2,300 digital cameras and 700 video cameras have been engaged,” the state’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Umesh Sinha said.