With all other major political parties yet not finalised the names of their candidates particularly Congress and Bharatiya Janta Party, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati went ahead and released the first list of 100 candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections in the state.
The candidates, majority of them belonging to Muslim community, are from the Western part of the State which goes to the polls in the first two phases of the elections on February 11 and 15 respectively. Two Congress turncoats Nawab Kazim Ali Khan and Dilnawaz Khan have been given ticket from their respective seats of Swar in Rampur and Sayana in Bulandshahr districts. Another MlA Shyam Sunder Sharma, who switched over to BSP from Trinumool Congress, has been given ticket from Maat seat in Mathura district. BSP senior leader Ramveer Upadhaya has been again chosen from Sadabad seat in Hathras district while his younger brother Mukul Upadhaya has been given ticket from Shikarpur seat in Bulandshahr district. The list includes 36 Muslims, 17 Dalits, 13 Brahmins and three women.
Muslims account for nearly 20 per cent of the state’s electorate and perhaps keeping this in mind, members of that community have been given two third tickets of the 100 seats spread over 20 districts declared by her on Thursday.
Mayawati said she would be announcing the second list also on Friday. The Party has already short listed names of candidates for all the 403 seats, BSP supremo Mayawati told a recent press conference while confirming that they will go alone in all the States. Giving caste-wise details of the shortlisted candidates, she had said that 87 tickets will be given to Dalits, 97 to Muslims and 106 to OBCs.
Of the 113 tickets earmarked for upper castes, Brahmins will get 66, Kshatriyas 36, and Kayasthas, Vaishyas and Punjabi 11, she had said. The BSP chief had said that she had finalised the names of candidates long ago and there will be no change in it.
Alleging that minorities were facing bias under Modi government, Mayawati had cautioned Muslims that voting for Samajwadi Party or Congress will only help BJP and sought their support “to stop” the saffron party. Muslims should not waste their vote as there is infighting in Samajwadi Party, and Congress lacks a voter base in Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati has said.Divided Muslim votes translate to gains for BJP, while a consolidation will change the poll arithmetic as minorities play a crucial role in at least 125 of 403 constituencies.
Muslims are considered the traditional vote bank of the ruling Samajwadi Party and the concern over SP family feud has been voiced by several top clerics including, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, the Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jama Masjid and Maulana
Salman Nadvi of lucknow-based Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulema. Mayawati had also accused Opposition parties of leveling baseless charge against BSP that it is a casteist party so that other castes do not vote for it. “During all the four governments, BSP has worked in the interest of all castes besides the Dalits,” she had said, adding her party has also demanded quota on economic basis for
the upper castes both in and outside Parliament.
The list announced on Thursday included the names of Mohammad Iqbal(Behat), Naveen( Nakur), Mukesh Dikshit( Saharanpur( city), Jagpal Singh ( Saharanpur(rural-SC), Mazid Ali( Deoband), Ravindra Kumar Mohlu(Rampur Maniharan- SC), Mahipal Singh ( Gangoh), Diwakar Deshwal( Kairana), Abdul Rao Waris( Thanabhawan),Mohammad Islam ( Shamli), Ms Saiyda Begum( Budahana), Noor Saleem rana( Charthawal), Anil Kumar ( Purkazi-SC), Rakesh Kumar Sharma (Muzaffarnagar), Shivan Singh Saini( Khatauli), Nawajish Alam Khan( Meerapur), Nadeem Ahmed ( Shiwalkhas), Hafiz Mohammad Imran( Sardhana), Yogesh Verma(Hastinapur-SC), Gajraj Singh ( Kithor), Satyendra Solanki( Meerut Cant), Pankaj Jolly( Meerut city), Hazi Mohammad Yakub( Meerut south), Ms Raj Bala(Chaprauli),lokesh Dikshit( Baraut), Ahmed Hamid( Baghpat), Hazi Zakir Ali(loni), Sudan Kumar( Muradnagar), Amarpal Sharma ( Sahibabad), Suresh Bansal(Ghaziabad), Wahab Choudhury( Modinagar), Aslam Ali( Dhaulana), Sripal Singh (Hapur-SC), Prashant Choudhury( Garhmukteshwar), Ravikant Mishra( Noida), Satyaveer Singh Gujar( Dadri), Vedram Bhati( Jewar), Hazi Imran (Sikerendrabad), Mohammad Alim Khan( Bulandshahr), Dilnawaz Khan( Sayana), Gajendra Singh(Anupshahar),
Devendra Bharadwaj ( Dibai), Mukul Upadhaya( Shikarpur), Arjun Singh ( Khurja-SC), Rakesh Kuar Maurya ( Khair-SC), Thakur Jaiveer Singh( Barauli), Illias Choudhury( Atrauli), Mohammad Sageer( Charra), Ram Kumar Sharma ( Kol), Mohammad Arif( Aligarh), Rajendra Kumar( Iglas-SC), Brajmohan Rahi( Hatras-SC), Ramveer Upadhaya( Sadabad), Bani Singh Baghel( Sikerdrarau), Ajay Chaturvedi(Kasganj), Dev Prakash( Amapur), Dhirendra Bahadur Singh Chauhan(Patiyali), Ramkishore Yadav( Aliganj), Gajendra Singh Chauhan( Etah), Salabh Babu Maheshwari( Marhara), Mohan Singh ( Jalesar-SC), Manoj Pathak(Chata), Shyam Sunder Sharma( maat), Rajkumar Rawat( Govardhan), Yogesh Dwivedi( Mathura), Premchandra Kardam( Baldev-SC), Dr, Dharampal Singh (Etmadpur), Gutiyari lal Dubesh(Agra cantt-SC), Julifkar Ahmed Bhutto(Agra south),Gyendra Kumar Gautam( Agra North), Kalicharan Suman(Agra rural-SC), Surajpal Singh( fatehpur Sikri), Bhagwan Singh Kushawaha( Khairagarh), Umesh Sainthiya( Fatehabad), Madhusudan Sharma( Bah), Rakesh Babu( Tundla-SC), Shivraj Singh Yadav( Jasrana), Khalid Nasir (Ferozabad), Shailesh Kumar Yadav(Shikohabad), Raghvendra Singh( Sirsaganj), Jamil Ahmed Ansari( Nazibabad), Virendra Pal Singh( Nagina-SC), Fahad Yajdani( Barhapur), Mohammad Ghazi(Dhampur), Vivek Singh( Nataur-SC), Rashid Ahmed ( Bijnore), Mohammad Iqbal( Chandpur),Gahaur Iqbal( Nurpur), Mohammad Nasir( Kanth), Vijay Yadav(Thakurdwara), Pannalal alias Bablu Saini( Moradabad rural),Atiq Ahmed(Moradabad city), Hazi Akbar Hussain( Kundarki), Rishipal Singh ( Bilari), Ms Vimrawati( Chandausi-SC), Aquilliur Rahma( Asmauli), Rafattulah( Sambhal), Mohammad Islam Khan( Gunnaur), Nawab Kazim Ali Khan( Swar) and Ali Yusuf Ali(Chamrau).