Lucknow: Allies in the Modi government could make the going tough for the BJP in UP if they are not “accommodated” in the upcoming lists of candidates.
The BJP, so far, has stated that its allies in UP will include only the Apna Dal and the fledgling Bharatiya Samaj Party. State BJP president Keshav Maurya said it is only the Apna Dal and the Bharatiya Samaj Party that will be given seats.
Other allies in the Modi government, however, are determined to contest the elections even if the BJP does not leave seats for them. To begin with, the other faction of the Apna Dal, led by Krishna Patel, is also claiming seats from the party by virtue of being the “real Apna Dal”. Ms Patel is seeking “respectable” seat share from the BJP, failing which she has threatened to field 100 to 150 candidates.
Republican Party of India (RPI) leader and Union minister Ramdas Athawale has said that he hoped for an alliance with the BJP in UP but if the same did not materialise, the RPI could contest between 200 to 250 seats in the state.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) is also preparing to contest 25 seats in the state. SAD UP spokesman Gurpreet Singh Bagga said that they would focus on seats that have a substantial Sikh population. Most of these seats are in the Terai region, including Pilibhit, Saharanpur, Jhansi, Lakhimpur Kheri and Shahjahanpur, Meerut, Agra, Saharanpur and Ghaziabad. LJP, led by Ram Vilas Paswan, is yet another BJP ally, yearning to contest seats in UP. The BJP is in no mood to leave seats for the LJP but party sources say they are preparing to field candidates on about two dozen seats. Former BSP MP Dhananjay Singh is keen on contesting on an LJP ticket, and he is also a potential winner.
The Shiv Sena, meanwhile, is also preparing to field candidates on about 100 seats in Uttar Pradesh to retain its “political identity in UP”.
If these parties field candidates even on limited seats, they can emerge, at best, as “vote-cutters, known as ‘vote katua’” in local parlance. These parties are unlikely to make much headway on their own but even if they eat into a few thousand votes in various constituencies, they will damage the saffron party’s prospectus in the state.
BJP leaders, however, says the party high command is not too concerned about the damage that these allies could cause, and is apparently unwilling to concede seats to them.
