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UP polls: Keshav Prasad Maurya targets SP over selection, replacement of Kairana candidate
Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya also hit out at SP chief Akhilesh Yadav for taking a pledge with grain in hand about working for the welfare of the farmers, if voted to power in UP polls
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya on Monday targeted the Samajwadi Party (SP) for replacing Nahid Hasan, the SP candidate from the Kairana assembly seat in west UP, with his sister Iqra.
Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya also hit out at SP chief Akhilesh Yadav for taking a pledge with grain in hand about working for the welfare of the farmers, if voted to power.
“I have heard that under severe criticism, the SP has now replaced its tainted candidate from Kairana with his sister. This is unacceptable as the BJP believes that fielding a tainted individual or any of their family members is equally wrong,” Keshav Prasad Maurya said, addressing media persons at the BJP headquarters in Lucknow on Monday.
Nahid Hasan was arrested under the Gangsters Act on Saturday. Immediately after that, top BJP leaders, including chief minister Yogi Adityanath, had targeted the SP for fielding ‘tainted’ candidates. Union information and broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur had also hit out at the SP on the issue. He said while the BJP was drawing honest leaders and professionals, the SP was fielding those lawmakers who were either on jail or just out on bail.
“As for Akhileshji’s pledge to work for farmers, all I can say is that it is just a political stunt. What did the SP do for farmers when it was in power? They should have then provided MSP to farmers for their produce, cleared dues of sugarcane farmers,” Keshav Prasad Maurya said.
“Yeh koi nayi sapa nahin, wahi sapa hai (this is no new SP, it’s the same old SP),” Keshav Prasad Maurya said. This remark was made in the context of a SP campaign theme – ‘nayi sapa hai, nayi hawa hai .. (it’s a new SP and welcome winds of change are blowing).
Several political leaders joined the BJP on the occasion. The new joinees included former lawmaker and state vice-president of the Congress Daljit Singh, Rashmi Arya, former Samajwadi Party lawmaker from Mauranipur in Bundelkhand, Brajmohan Singh Kushwaha, a former zonal coordinator who held a position equivalent to a minister of state, Dr Surbhi, who had earlier contested the elections on the Samajwadi Party ticket, and Satendra Chauhan, former state chief of the Janwadi Party in Azamgarh.
“Virtually daily, someone or the other is joining us and the list of those eyeing entry into the BJP from across parties is huge,” BJP co media-incharge Himanshu Dubey said.
