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Mayawati to address rally in Mainpuri today
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Mayawati had contested the polls in alliance with the Samajwadi Party and even shared poll stage with archrival and SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav when he contested and won from Mainpuri. The brief arrangement has since fallen apart and now Mayawati’s rally in Christian College Ground in Mainpuri is being looked upon as the BSP’s attempts to weaken the SP in its bastion.
Lucknow: Bahujan Samaj Party chief and former chief minister Mayawati will hold a rally in Mainpuri on Thursday in support of her party’s candidate. Mainpuri is a constituency from where Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple Yadav is recontesting.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Mayawati had contested the polls in alliance with the Samajwadi Party and even shared poll stage with archrival and SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav when he contested and won from Mainpuri. The brief arrangement has since fallen apart and now Mayawati’s rally in Christian College Ground in Mainpuri is being looked upon as the BSP’s attempts to weaken the SP in its bastion.
“It is going to be a massive rally and all arrangements have been made ,” a local BSP leader said in Mainpuri which would go to polls in the third phase on May 7.
The BJP has fielded Yogi 2.0 minister Jaiveer Singh, a former Samajwadi Party leader, against the SP while the BSP changed its candidate Gulshan Kumar Shakya with Shiv Kumar Yadav, ostensibly to make things difficult for the SP candidate, political observers said. Union home minister Amit Shah and chief minister Yogi Adityanath have already addressed rallies in Mainpuri and party leaders indicated that more rallies were in the offing.
After the demise of SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav in 2022, his daughter-in-law Dimple Yadav had contested and won the seat in the Lok Sabha by-poll. Mainpuri was among the 16 Lok Sabha seats the BJP had lost in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and the party has pulled out all stops this time to win the seat. Deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya who has been regularly campaigning in Mainpuri said, “There is no SP citadel anywhere and the SP will soon realize this.”
When the BJP had named Yogi minister Jaiveer Singh as its candidate from the seat, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had remarked that the BJP’s decision had now ensured that SP would win the seat by a huge margin. At this, Jaiveer had responded by saying that the SP chief would realise on June 4 (when results are known) how wrong he was.
