With Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party unity as a shot in its arm, the top leaders of Rashtriya lok Dal (RlD) are in upbeat to win bye election in Kairana constituency (lok Sabha)and working on ‘Do or Die’ maxim to grab the seat. Besides, the star campaigners of Samajwadi Party, like senior Azam Khan, will campaign for the RlD candidate Tabbasum Begum, the former MP from BSP in the poll fray.
“We have an upper hand and we will win the election,” RlD national spokesman Aniy Dubey said. He said the arithmetic to win election is simple. “In this election, Muslims and Dalits will also vote to the RlD contestant. In the previous election, SP contestant had a close fight with the BJP’s MP late Hukum Singh. With the opposition unity, Muslims votes will vote en masse to RlD candidate. On the other hand, the RlD contestant will also get votes of Dalits as the BSP is also supporting our candidate in the election us in the election,’ he explained. He said the RlD contestant had an edge with BJP contestant due to this equation.
Party sources said Chaudhary Ajeet Singh, Jayant Chaudhary and other senior RlD leaders are camping in Kairana and are holding rallies. “The Gujjars voters are is state of dilemma and they are not so much in favour. The RlD leaders have planed several rallies in Gujjar dominates areas where the leaders will spoke about state government failure in clearing arrears of sugarcane growers and loan waiving issues. By this way they will try to woo the Gujjar voters,” the sources said.
Party sources at lucknow headquarters of RlD said people were shown good response in the meetings being addressed by the RlD leaders and it showed that the RlD game plan will work in the election. They said the farmers related issues will be a major poll plank that RlD will put forward to harp on in this bye election. “As of now an arrears about 13000 crore is yet to be paid to sugarcane growers by the state government. The government claim to increase the income of the farmers had taken a back bench after it was announced with much fan and fare,’ the sources said.
The party sources said the BJP had made ‘Palayan’ (exodus) a major poll plank in the previous election to gain an edge in the election. “This way it had polarized the votes in the constituency. The BJP is playing the same card by raking up Jinna issue at Aligarh Muslim University. But there are a few takers to its poll plank,” they said.
After the opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh announced that they had taken a united stand against the ruling BJP in the upcoming Kairana lok Sabha bypolls, the RlD announced full support to the united opposition and fielded former BSP MP Tabassum Begum on a RlD ticket. The election for this seat is a fight of prestige for BJP and united opposition for the run-up to the 2019 lok Sabha election and after the poll drubbing BJP at the hands of the united opposition in the Phulpur and Gorakhpur bypolls recently.
While BJP’s poll debacle gave a booster dose to united opposition to continue the alliance for election to be held in future, the BJP was forced to cobble up equations to trounce the united opposition.
Tabassum is the wife of former Samajwadi Party MP Munawar Hasan, and their son Nahid Hasan is also an SP legislator. Party sources said Tabassum who is former BSP MP, will easily woo the Jats voters with the RlD symbol in her hand. “This also will bridge the differences between the dominant Jats with Muslims and Dalits, who fell apart after the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots,’ the sources said.