The Samajwadi party Chief Mullayam Singh Yadav will kick off the election cam campaign of the party from Ghazipur on Wednesday. The stakes are high for the ruling party as the party struggles to retain its stronghold from the onslaught of the BJP following the offensive of currency withdrawal. The ruling party is under tremendous pressure to out shadow the rally of the BJP in Ghazipur town on November 14 addressed by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. PM had also laid the foundation of a key infrastructure project- the road and rail bridge on river Ganga pending for the last over five decades.
Samajwadi party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav will launch the poll campaign of his party from the Ghazipur rally, a day after celebrating his 78th birthday. Though the first family of the ruling party had presented a united look during the inauguration of the luck now—Agra expressway on Monday, the participation of the chief minister Akhilesh Yadav in the rally is still to be confirmed.
Mulayam was scheduled to launch the poll campaign from a rally in Azamgarh on October 6. The rally was however cancelled due to the ongoing family feud. The Ghazipur rally is significant for the Samajwadi party as will send clear signals to its traditional social coalition of Yadav and muslims . This will be the first major political event after the merger of the Mukhtar Ansari’s Quami ekta Dal (QED) with the Samajwadi party. The Ansaris are the natives of Mohammadi town in Ghazipur district. Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav is also likely to attend the rally in Ghazipur.
UP SP president Shivpal Singh Yadav is already camping in Ghazipur and was looking into the arrangements. “The turnout in our rally here on Wednesday will be at least five times more than the rally organised by the BJP in the same ground on November 14. We will never allow the attempts of the BJP to succeed for making inroads in our traditional stronghold’’, said convenor of the rally Om Prakash Singh, local MlA and the former minister who was dismissed from the cabinet on October 23.
He said the common people and the party leaders from neighbouring districts of Chanduli, Varanasi, Jaunpur, Ballia, Mau and Bhadoi will participate in the rally in Ghaazipur. He said all the top leaders of the party including state SP president shivpal Yadav and Rajya Sabha MP Ram Gopal Yadav will participate in the rally.
The BJP for cementing its social base in east UP districts has already stitched an alliance with the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj party—a political outfit of the MBCs Rajbhar community having a significant presence in the districts falling under Varanasi and Azamgarh divisions. This region is crucial for the Samajwadi party also as in 2012 assembly elections, SP had won 22 out of 28 seats falling Ghazipur, Mau, Ballia and Azamgarh. SP had won 9 out of total 10 assembly seats in Azamgarh districts.
Afzal Ansari, the former president of the merged outfit QED said `` there can never be any comparison between the political stature of Narendra Modi and Mulayam Singh Yadav as the former has no stakes in Ghazipur and east UP districts while Netaji is aware of every nook and corner of the region and has done a lot for the development of the region’’. He added `` tomorrow’s rally of the Samajwadi party will prove to be a big setback for the BJP and its president Amit Shah , who is painting us as the party of goons’’. Afzal Ansari was earlier in SP and was elected to lok Sabha from Ghazipur seat in 2004 parliament elections as SP candidate.