Samajwadi Party, the main opposition party in UP assembly has emerged as the front runner in the mayoral elections in state capital lucknow. SP is the only party which has not only announced its mayoral candidate it has also released the list of 96 candidates for corporations against total 110 wards in lucknow nagar Nigam.
The ruling BJP is still grappling with intense factionalism thus making it harder for the party to decide the candidate for the mayor and 110 wards in lucknow. The mayoral election of lucknow are crucial for the ruling BJP as the party is in power in the urban local body for the last 25 years. The last mayor Dinesh Sharma was elevated as the deputy chief minister after the assembly elections in March this year.
Though Bahujan Samaj party has also announced its mayoral candidate, is not considered to be in fight as the electoral battle in lucknow is likely to be between the ruling BJP and the Samajwadi Party. In this election the mayor seat of lucknow is reserved for women. SP has fielded Meera vardhan and BSP has fielded the former additional advocate general Bulbul Godiyal.
SP has already announced that it will contest the municipal elections on its own strength and will not enter into alliance with any party including the Congress. Infect both the parties have decided to go it alone in the elections. The two parties had come together ahead of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in March this year to stop the saffron surge in the state.
“The pre-poll electoral tie-up was for 2017 UP Assembly elections. This does not mean that it continues for the urban local bodies’ elections or 2019 lok Sabha polls,” said Samajwadi Party spokesperson and MlC Sunil Yadav. His remarks came against the backdrop of senior Congress leader and the party’s general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad recently stating that his party would go it alone in the urban local bodies polls.
The SP MlC said `` electoral politics is very dynamic and the situation keep changing and the issues and prevailing situation decide whether to opt for an electoral tie-up or not and we feel that it’s not in our best interest to go for alliance with the Congress and we will fight the urban local bodies’ polls on our own,”
A senior SP leader said ``it’s in our interests that the Congress contests alone and cuts into the vote bank of the BJP’’. In recently elections of the Allahabad university students union the split in the BJP votes due to the Congress affiliate National Students Union of India candidates led to the rout of the RSS affiliate Akhil Bhartiya Vidhyarthi parishad and facilitated the victory of the Samajwadi Chatr Sabha candidates on all the posts except of the general secretary.
In the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections held earlier this year, the Congress contested in 114 of the 403 seats winning only seven, while the Samajwadi Party fielded as many as 311 candidates, and won 47 seats. In over a dozen Assembly seats, both the SP and the Congress were in fray.