Uttar Pradesh: BJP wants to add 7 to 2014 LS kitty of 71

Lucknow: Confident of retaining the 71 seats that it had won in Uttar Pradesh in 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is now concentrating on winning the seven seats it had lost in the last to the rival Samajwadi Party and the Congress.

The seven seats that the BJP had lost in 2014 included Amethi and Rae Bareli (both Congress) and Azamgarh, Mainpuri, Kannauj, Ferozabad and Badaun (all won by Samajwadi Party). Also, out of the 80 seats two were won by Apna Dal, an NDA ally.

The party is now focusing its attention on strengthening its organisation on the seven seats that are considered the bastions of Congress and SP.

The party has already been working on Congress president Rahul Gandhi's constituency, Amethi, with Union minister Smriti Irani, who had unsuccessfully contested the 2014 elections from here, closely monitoring the progress.

The Union minister not only visits the constituency at regular intervals but also interacts with the local people who visit her in Delhi. She makes it a point to highlight the failures of Mr Gandhi in protecting the interests of his constituency.

UP minister Suresh Pasi and BJP MLA Dal Bahadur Kori, who belong to Amethi and Rae Bareli, respectively, have been asked by the party to keep a close watch on the mood of the people.

The BJP is confident that UPA chief Mrs Sonia Gandhi will not contest the elections from Rae Bareli in 2019 due to health issues and sources say that Priyanka Gandhi Vadra may replace her mother in Rae Bareli.

The BJP is already scouting for a strong candidate and its strategy is to keep both, Mr Gandhi and Ms Vadra, pinned to their seats so that they are not able to campaign extensively in other parts of the country.

The BJP is also keen to wrest the five "family seats" that the SP had won in 2014. The party has already started work and the result was obvious in the recent municipal elections where SP lost in Ferozabad and Kannauj.

Sensing trouble, SP president Akhilesh Yadav has already announced that he will contest the Kannauj seat in 2019. His wife Dimple Yadav had won the seat with a little over 20,000 votes in 2014 and he will certainly not take any more risks by fielding her again. Mr Yadav's presence will strengthen the party in neighbouring seats too.

SP veteran Mulayam Singh Yadav has also decided to shift to Mainpuri, a comparatively safe seat, for the next general elections. More changes are in the offing because the SP is determined to ensure that members of its first family get re-elected to the Lok Sabha.

Sources said that BJP cadres have been directed to highlight the Yadav family feud in the SP bastions so that the voters get increasingly disillusioned with the former ruling party's future.

Local saffron leaders are leaving no stone unturned to keep the family battle alive while the Yogi government is crrying out developmental projects in all these seats and creats jobs under the One District, One Product scheme to promote the perfume industry in Kannauj  and 'tarakashi' work in Mainpuri.