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SEAT CHANGE FRICTION HITS BSP, SP
Lucknow
March 16: Last-minute changes in candidates for the Lok Sabha elections are causing serious factional wars within the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party.
Sources in both parties admit on condition of anonymity that changes in names at this late stage could hamper their prospects.
The BSP, for instance, had announced most of its candidates a year ago and had asked those chosen to start getting ready to face the electorate. Now, with just a month to go before the polls, many of these candidates have been asked to make way for others. This is leading to considerable bitterness and factionalism.
A BSP candidate, who was replaced last week, told this newspaper: "I campaigned for almost eight months and spent more than Rs 25 lakhs, and now I am asked to make way for another candidate. My supporters are angry and people belonging to my caste (upper caste) are seeing it as an insult to the community. I don’t know if this will have an impact on the polls, but we are definitely very hurt and it’s too late to look for other pastures."
The BSP has effected last-minute changes in several seats, including Faizabad, where Mitrasen Yadav was shown the door; Kaiserganj, where Ajay Pratap Singh has been replaced by Puttu Awasthi; and Lakhimpur, where Gyan Bajpai was replaced by Iliyas Azmi. Candidates have been changed more than once in Kanpur, Hardoi, Gonda, Ghaziabad, Ghazipur, Mainpuri, Varanasi, Sultanpur, Ambedkar Nagar, Moradabad, Sambhal, Etah and Mohanlalganj.
Interestingly, changes in most of these seats were made to accommodate turncoats who kept trickling in from other parties. Shafiqur Rehman Barq of the Samajwadi Party was accommodated in Sambhal, S.P. Singh Baghel in Ferozabad, Sukhda Misra in Kanpur, Jai Prakash Rawat in Mohanlalganj, Kirti Vardhan Singh in Gonda, Mukhtar Ansari in Varanasi and Afzal Ansari in Ghazipur.
Changes are also likely in Badaun, where Salim Shervani, sitting SP MP, is expected to contest on a BSP ticket. The party may pull out D.P. Yadav, who has been campaigning for the past several months. In Azamgarh, where the BSP nominated Malik Masood, a change is in the offing. BSP MP Akbar "Dumpy" Ahmed is likely to get renominated. In Unnao, mafia don Aruna Shankar Shukla, aka Anna Maharaj, may be asked to make way for another candidate.
In the Samajwadi Party, too, last-minute changes have led to a revolt in the ranks. The national president of the Samajwadi Mahila Sabha, Ranjana Bajpai, left the SP two days ago after she was told her candidature was being withdrawn from Sitapur Lok Sabha seat. Former MP Ganga Charan Rajput has also quit the SP after being denied a ticket from Hamirpur.