Samajwadi Party may deny ticket to 100 sitting MLAs in 2017 polls

Springing a surprise on its detractors, the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) is planning to deny tickets to at least 100 sitting MLAs in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls which could alter the political calculations, combinations and electoral arithmetic in the state.

If the party insiders are to be believed, the current thinking in the party is to deny at least 100 sitting MLAs of the total 229 seats SP has won in 2012. This could weaken the anti-incumbency factor. They claimed that the law and order situation and corruption issues have not affected the image of chief minister Akhilesh Yadav.

“If they (BJP, BSP, Congress) raise the issue of law and order in UP, we would ask them to identify a single state where it is better. We would compel them to compare UP with Gujarat, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka and even Maharashra,” said a SP leader close to Mr Yadav.

BSP supremo Mayawati’s strong reaction against Dayashankar Singh and his family members has already wounded the upper castes in UP. SP and BJP will fan this feeling further through whisper campaign that if the BSP comes to power then she would use “atrocities act against upper castes.”

Although a picture about whether the minority votes remain intact or split between BSP, SP and Congress is still unclear, the votes of Pasi, Koiri, Kushwaha, Kurmi and Lodh would be crucial in the coming electoral battle.

Ms Mayawati had earlier become chief minister on BJP’s support. For her, the saffron party is not politically untouchable before and after the communal violence in Gujarat in 2002. The SP would use this factor to caution the minorities that she can go with BJP.

Congress has been keen on having either a pre-or-post-poll alliance with BSP as it thinks Ms Mayawati is the only credible ally than the Mulayam Singh Yadav led party.

While SP and BJP could come together covertly to brand BSP as an anti upper caste party and thus ensure that it will not get upper caste votes, Congress’s target is to win 40 to 60 seats. It can emerge as a player only if no party gets an absolute majority.

Congress might have announced its CM candidate but there is no clarity yet on the number of seats out of the available 403 seats in the UP Assembly, it would contest on its own. According to Congress insiders, the party’s real objective is to check BJP from coming to power in UP at any cost. Therefore, SP and BSP cannot be its opponents. Besides, these parties had backed Congress candidates in the recently held Rajya Sabha election from UP, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand.