Congress, which is yet to revive from the debacle in the lok Sabha elections, seems to have almost given a ‘walkover’ to the ruling Samajwadi Party and the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) in the coming by-elections to one lok Sabha and 11 Assembly seats in the state slated for September 13.
Notification for the by-polls would be issued on Wednesday and August 27 is the last date for filing of the nominations, but expect for SP, none other party has announced its candidates for the elections. BJP leaders had reportedly met in lucknow under the leadership of party president Amit Shah to finalise the name of the candidates, on Tuesday. Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) has already decided not to contest the by-polls. Congress on the other hand has shown its least interest in the by-polls though it claimed to have already started process to select the candidate for the elections. Party leaders here said that a meeting is being held in New Delhi on Wednesday to decide on the names of the candidates. However, sources said that as no one in the Party is keen to go to pools fearing similar drubbing into the hands of BJP as was witnessed in last Parliament elections, so the high command is seriously thinking of giving tickets to those who contested last times. Interestingly, even these leaders had not themselves made any efforts to get a ticket as a clear-cut message has been passed that the Party would not give any financial assistance to the candidates to fight elections due to poor economic situation. It may be mentioned here that usually, many leaders seek tickets of Congress just as they get huge sum for campaigning from the High Command thus they made good money by saving the fund.
Besides, the Party is still confused whether to field any candidate from Mainpuri Parliament by-polls. ``The party is in confusion whether to field candidate in Mainpuri lok Sabha seat or not. In the last lok Sabha elections, we had not fielded any candidate from the seat as SP Supremo, Mulayam Singh is contesting,” a senior Congress leader said here on Tuesday. He, however, said that it be better that the Congress would not contest and let SP to take on BJP as they had not even their workers ready to take on campaign. ``All the district and city presidents of Congress in the state has been dissolved after the lok Sabha elections and no local organisation is existing in any district”, pointed the leader saying that when the High Command as well as state president, Nirmal Khatri, is not serious to strengthen the Party before they would go to polls than there is no need to further humiliate the Party cadre which is already demoralised after witnessing worst ever show during last general elections.