The political parties mainly Bharatiya Janata Party and Samajwadi Party are gearing up for the bye-elections for 11 seats that had fallen vacant following legislators graduating to lok Sabha after general elections of 2014.
The focus would be on BJP and its ally partner Apna Dal that had been the biggest gainer as 11 of their legislators won elections. The polls are expected sometimes in October this year.
Sources say that Samajwadi Party has deputed two ministers – one cabinet rank and one minister of state – to work in the constituencies that would go to polls. They have been asked to identify the problems people of that region were facing and prepare a list and submit the same to Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, who also happens to be the state president of the party.
“Election is an integral part of politics. The political parties should always be ready to face the battle of ballots. The Samajwadi Party is all prepared to expose the lies of “achche din” which BJP leaders promised day-in and day-out during election campaign. The time has come to expose the party,” SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhry said.
In a recent meeting at party headquarters Samajwadi Party national president Mulayam Singh Yadav had asked party workers to gear up for bye-elections. He said if SP can win bye-polls it would be great dent to the BJP’s morale.
The BJP legislators who won the lok Sabha elections are : Ajay (khiri), Uma Bharati (Mahoba), Kalraj Mishra (lucknow,) Sadhavi Niranjan Jyoti (Hamirpur), Kunwar Bhartendu (Bijnore), Raghav lakhanpal (Saharanpur), Kunwar Sarvesh Kumar (Moradabad), Savitri Bai Phule (Bahraich) and Hukum Singh (Prabudh Nagar).
The NDA alliance partner Apna dal’s Anupriya Patel was legislator from Rohnia (Varanasi) and she won lok Sabha polls from Mirzapur.
BJP spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak said that the BJP had swept the lok Sabha elections and will repeat its performance in bye-elections too. “The victory margin of our candidates would be much more than the 2012 assembly polls,” he told The Pioneer on Monday.
The Bahujan Samaj party is not likely to contest the bye-elections.