Bundelkhand has virtually become the battle ground for OBC votes in Uttar Pradesh as the BJP, Congress, and Samajwadi Party have intensified their campaign to lure the voters ahead of the lok Sabha polls.
While the BJP is banking on NaMo's magic to attract the OBC's, the Congress is trying to propagate its schemes for the backward castes in the region. On the other hand the Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav flagged off yatras from lucknow on Thursday to win over the backward castes, which he described would pave way into the heartland of the OBC population and ensure the party's success in its move to reach the Centre and replace the UPA Government.
Buoyed by the success of BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's Kanpur rally, the saffron camp is already optimistic that NaMo's rally in Jhansi on Friday will set the tone and tenor for winning the hearts of the OBC voters.The BJP has primarily focussed on Jhansi since it has 60 percent population of OBC's and was in the considered a saffron citadel. leaders of the BJP, Congress and SP slammed one another for neglecting the Bundelkhand region. Each of the party leaders promised to ensure a better deal to the backwards, who had been all along cheated by the rival parties. Rahul Gandhi will be address a rally in Hamirpur on October 30.
The Bundelkhand region has four parliamentary seats- Jhansi, Jaluan, Banda and Hamirpur. The performance of both the Congress and BJP has been poor in the last lok Sabha elections. However the SP and BSP had fared better with the SP winning the Banda and Jhansi seat while the BSP had registerd its victory in Hamirpur. The BJP had won both Hamirpur and Charkhari in the 2012 Vidhan Sabha elections. In lucknow, the SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav kicked off his campaign to woo backward castes flagging off a rath yatra on Thursday. Speaking on the occasion, Mulayam targetted the UPA government as "anti-backward".He said the yatras would pave the way for a change of power at the Centre.He favoured inclusion of 17 most backward castes of OBC in Scheduled Caste.