Samajwadi Party, the main challenger to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the urban local bodies elections, is grappling with rebellion in its ranks over the candidates fielded by the party. Be it west UP or the east, the party is facing rebellion from party leaders, including veterans like 93-year-old party MP from Sambhal, Shafiqur Rahman Barq, who has announced to back an independent candidate instead of the SP official candidate.
Barq has said that it did not matter if he was expelled from the party.
“Along with Mulayam Singh Yadav, I formed the Samajwadi Party. No one else can claim it. The others joined the party later. I am not scared of the party leadership. They can remove me and it won’t matter to me,” Barq said.
The SP has fielded local MLA Iqbal Mehmood’s wife Ruksana Mehmood for the post of Sambhal nagar palika parishad chairperson.
SP national spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary, however, downplayed the issue. ` “Things will be ironed out. These are local elections. These things can happen because there are multiple people seeking tickets. Barq saheb is our committed leader and any issue will be ironed out with him,” Chaudhary said.
Far across in Ballia district also, the SP house is not in order. The SP expelled senior leader Sanjay Upadhyay for six years after he announced to contest against the party’s official candidate, Laxman Gupta, for the post of chairperson of Ballia nagar palika parishad. Upadhyay was expelled along with the party’s former district unit vice-president Jamal Alam, former district secretary Adarsh Mishra and another leader Ajay Yadav.
In Sikandarpur in Ballia district, SP MLA Mohammad Ziauddin Rizvi has also announced to back an independent candidate against the party’s nominee for the post of chairperson of Sikandarpur nagar panchayat. While SP has fielded Dinesh Chowdhary for the post, Rizvi has announced his support for Bhishma Yadav.
Rizvi said, “Some people have misled SP national president Akhilesh Yadav.”
However, SP district unit president Raj Mangal Yadav dismissed Rizvi’s allegations. “The charges are baseless. Ticket distribution has been done with the consent of party national president Akhilesh Yadav and state president Naresh Uttam. It is the duty of all SP workers and leaders to make the party candidates win… If someone does not follow this, it will be considered indiscipline… Rizvi is making baseless statements in a confused state of mind,” he said.
In neighbouring Mau, long-time SP loyalist and former chairperson of Mau nagar palika, Arshad Jamaal, joined the Bahujan Samaj Party after being denied the ticket. Jamaal said that at least 13 SP corporators and party’s Mau city unit president Mukhtar Husain had also joined the BSP after he was denied the ticket.
SP’s Mau district unit president Doodhnath Yadav, however, claimed that no party corporator had joined the BSP. “It is not true. Yes, Mukhtar Hussain, who was our city unit president, has left but our corporators have not,” he said.
The elections to UP’s 760 urban local bodies – including 17 municipal corporations, 199 nagar palika parishads and 544 nagar panchayats – will be held in two phases on May 4 and 11.The counting of votes will be taken up on May 13.
