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Race for Lok Sabha 2019 tickets: Feedback in, BSP chief screening candidates
Mayawati is likely to make an official declaration of 38 candidates after the announcement of the Lok Sabha election schedule by the Election Commission.
The call given by Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati to party leaders to start mobilising workers at the grass roots level for Lok Sabha elections has intensified the race for ticket among aspirants.
Following the directives, the party leaders have started holding meetings with party workers at divisional and district headquarters from Tuesday.
A BSP leader familiar with the developments said the zonal coordinators had been directed to send a list of ticket-seekers to the party chief.
“She is screening the candidates in Delhi and Lucknow. The feedback of zonal coordinators is important for the distribution of tickets,” he said.
Mayawati is likely to make an official declaration of 38 candidates after the announcement of the Lok Sabha election schedule by the Election Commission.
As per the terms of the alliance, BSP will field candidates on 38 seats while SP will have 37 seats to contest. The SP-BSP alliance will not field candidates in Congress stronghold Amethi and Rae Bareli while three seats have been set aside for the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).
“Winnability is an important factor. The party chief has details of caste equations of all the 38 constituencies. She also collects feedback from district and sector office-bearers before giving green signal to candidates,” the leader said.
He said the selected candidates would be appointed as the Lok Sabha in-charge of their respective constituency.
That there is a tough tussle for tickets can be gauged from the fact that several Lok Sabha in-charges have been changed since the announcement of the BSP’s alliance the Samajwadi Party on January 12.
According to party leaders, the in-charge of Bijnore Lok Sabha seat Ruchi Veera was removed on the report of party office-bearers and was replaced by Haji Iqbal.
Former MP Kaiser Jahan, who was earlier made the in-charge of Sitapur Lok Sabha seat, was also replaced by Nakul Dubey.
Jahan joined the Congress on Monday.
Tribhuwan Ram, who was the in-charge of Barabanki Lok Sabha seat, has been shifted to Macchlishahar while Reena Chaudhary, the in-charge of Mohanlalganj seat, has been replaced by CL Verma.
There was a tough contest between former MPs Bhalchandra Yadav and Kushal Tiwari for ticket from Sant Kabir Nagar. Keeping caste equation in mind, Mayawati made Tiwari the in-charge of the seat. Again, there is a tussle for ticket between Ramji Shukla and Nisha Sachan for Akbarpur seat.
“Caste is an important factor in the selection of candidates on various seats. In Muslim-dominated areas, particularly Rohilkhand, preference is being given to Muslim candidates,” another BSP leader said.
The party chief has appointed in-charges of several seats including Aftab Alam (Domariyaganj), RS Kushwaha (Salempur), Haji Yaqub Qureshi (Meerut), Sanjay Bhati (Gautam Buddh Nagar), Manoj Soni (Agra), Afzal Ansari (Ghazipur), Rangnath Mishra (Bhadohi), Haji Fazlur Rehman (Saharanpur), Seema Upadhyaya (Fatehpur Sikri), Ziauddin (Amroha), Yogesh Verma (Bulandshahr), Ajit Baliyan (Aligarh), Neelu Satyarthi (Misrikh), Arshad Siddiqui (Dhaurhara), Dudhram Chaudhary (Bansgaon) and Ram Prasad Chaudhary (Basti).
BSP spokesperson Sudhindra Bhadouria said, “We are a cadre-based political party and the workers follow the command of the party president. Foot soldiers of the party are geared up for the electoral battle and our aim is to realise the dream of ‘behenji’ by empowering the suppressed community and spreading the ideals of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram,” he said.
