Mayawati hints at BJP-SP collusion in Uttar Pradesh bypolls
In the Uttar Pradesh bypolls held on December 5, the SP retained the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat while the BJP won the Rampur Sadar seat for the first time but lost the Khatauli assembly seat to the RLD-SP alliance.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Sunday appeared to indicate that the Samajwadi Party’s defeat in the Rampur Sadar assembly bypoll in Uttar Pradesh was due to planned low voting on the seat represented by SP veteran Azam Khan before his disqualification.
In a tweet in Hindi, Mayawati said, “The SP won the bypolls held on Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, but it lost for the first time on the seat held by Azam Khan in the assembly by-election due to planned low voting.”
Mayawati said there is a lot of discussion that the SP candidate’s defeat was the result of “collusion” between the SP and the BJP.
In another tweet, she said, “The Muslim community needs to think and understand this so that in the upcoming elections, it can save itself from getting cheated. There is a lot of suspicion over the defeat of the BJP in the Khatauli assembly bypolls, and this is also a matter to think about.”
In the Uttar Pradesh bypolls held on December 5, the SP retained the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat while the BJP won the Rampur Sadar seat for the first time but lost the Khatauli assembly seat to the RLD-SP alliance.
Mainpuri and Rampur were considered SP strongholds while the the BJP had won the Khatauli seat in 2017 and 2022 state assembly polls. The BSP did not contest the bypolls.
In the Rampur Sadar bypoll, BJP candidate Akash Saxena defeated the SP candidate Asim Raza, a close aide of Azam Khan, by margin of over 34,000 votes.
In Mainpuri, SP candidate Dimple Yadav defeated her nearest rival BJP’s Raghuraj Singh Shakya by margin of 2.88 lakh votes.
In June, the BJP had wrested the Rampur and Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats from the SP in bypolls.
Refuting Mayawati’s allegation, state BJP chief Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary said there was no deal between the BJP and the SP. The leaders of the BJP campaigned for party candidates on the three seats, he said.
According to a PTI report, BJP’s newly elected MLA from Rampur Akash Saxena said, “In the Lok Sabha bypolls held in Rampur, the voting percentage was 31.5 per cent, and in the recent assembly by-elections held in Rampur, the voting percentage was 35. So, it is wrong to say that there has been a low voter turnout in the by-election. The polling percentage (in the assembly bypolls) has increased by 3.5 points compared to the Lok Sabha bypolls.”
Samajwadi Party state spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said people were aware of under-hand dealing between the BJP and the BSP. The BSP did not field any candidate in the by-election to assist the BJP, he said.
