By TwoCircles.net Special Correspondent,
Lucknow: Former union minister Saleem Iqbal Sherwani is preparing to face another political battle of his life. However, this time it will not be his home turf Badaun but Aonla parliamentary seat in Bareilly district.
This seat is currently held by Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) stalwart Maneka Gandhi.
Sherwani himself has realised that contesting from Badaun will be a tough task a seat is represented by Samajwadi Party’s Dharmendra Yadav, who is nephew of Mulayam Singh Yadav. Sherwani has thus decided to shift towards Aonla in Bareilly. The decision has been taken after due consideration.
It is also being reported that Maneka Gandhi may shift to Pilibhit, the seat which is held by his son Varun Gandhi. Varun is likely to shift to Sultanpur seat which is close to Amethi, currently held by his cousin and Congress Vice President, Rahul Gandhi.
Both Maneka and Varun have stared meeting people from these two constituencies, according to reports.
Sherwani too has grabbed the opportunity with both hands. He is also making rounds of Bareilly district. Presently he is in Congress and has contested the 2009 elections from Badaun unsuccessfully. Sherwani is a five term MP and has been union minister for health in H D Devegowda government and external affairs minister during Indra Kumar Gujral government.
Sherwani’s decision is also based on sound reasoning. After delimitation, two assembly seats Shekhupur and Kasganj have been scrapped from Badaun parliamentary seat. Sherwani had good clout in both these assembly seats. Now Shekhupur is part of Aonla parliamentary seat. Sherwani recently attended a function at Dr Raghvendra’s hospital in Bareilly and later met people at the residence of Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) member Ajay Shukla. From there he went to Faridpur for a public meeting and later for other programme at Bukhara. Sherwani claimed that the broadgauge between Kasganj-Bareilly was due to his efforts.
Samajwadi Party has fielded former MP Sarvraj Singh while other parties are yet to declare their candidates. Congress had won the seat last time in 1984 when Kaptan Singh Solanki won the election. Since then Congress is yet to get a good candidate from Aonla.
Though Sherwani hails from Allahabad, he is now all ready shifts his base from Badaun to Aonla.