Silent BSP voters may decide Mainpuri's bypoll outcome amid changing dynamics

Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh): With just two days left for campaigning before the bypolls to two Assembly and one Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Samajwadi Party are sharpening their attacks on each other amid changing political dynamics ahead of the by-elections. In Mainpuri Lok Sabha bypolls, experts claim that the core vote bank of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is likely to decide the outcome. Notably, more than 1.25 lakh votes belong to the Jatav community and over 70,000 votes of different castes including Katheria will play a crucial role in the crucial by-elections.

According to experts, with Mayawati`s BSP not participating in the by-polls, the party supporters have the option to cast their votes for other candidates, and in such circumstances, both SP and BJP have the freedom to break into the core vote bank of BSP. In the last elections too, the BSP`s vote bank has been a major factor in the final election results. 

Experts in political affairs told ANI, "This is the Lok Sabha constituency where Mayawati`s BSP vote bank will decide who will become the MP in the fight between Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Samajwadi Party (SP) Actually, in Mainpuri more than 1.25 lakh votes belong to the Jatav community and more than seventy thousand votes belong to different castes including Katheria."

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After the demise of the SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav, the representative of the Lok-sabha constituency, the party has been receiving a lot of sympathies. Mainpuri has been a stronghold of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the party has fielded Dimple Yadav, wife of party president Akhilesh Yadav, for the upcoming elections. 

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Shivpal Singh Yadav, younger brother of the late Mulayam Singh Yadav, addressed an election rally in support of SP candidate Dimple Yadav in the Jaswantnagar assembly constituency ahead of the elections. 

Mainpuri is a bastion of SP, the BJP, which is running the government in the state and at the Centre, has been campaigning heavily for the Lok Sabha seat. The Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya joined the Mainpuri Lok Sabha by-election campaign of the party candidate Raghuraj Shakya during a road show in Barnahal town.

Hitting out at Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle Shivpal Sing Yadav, Deputy CM Keshav Prasad said that both are in a state of panic due to the fear of defeat, adding "I do not want to reply to abuses by Akhilesh Yadav ji`s and Shivpal Singh`s with abuses, nor will I ever, because my values are not like this."

Maurya further said, "Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle are in a state of panic because of the fear of defeat. The people of Rampur are defeating Azam Khan and the people of Mainpuri are defeating Dimple Yadav by making Raghuraj Shakya victorious. The people are working towards the path of development and to end hooliganism in Mainpuri." 

BJP, and Samajwadi Party sharpen attacks against each other 

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath slammed the previous SP rule and said that in the Akhilesh government, farmers could not visit their land as their tubewell connections were snapped, machines were stolen and their throats slit.

CM Yogi is quoted by IANS as saying, "Girls could not go to school and women to markets because of safety concerns. People were forced to migrate from places like Kairana and Kandala. People can never forget the cruelty meted out to Sachin and Gaurav (two brothers killed during Muzaffarnagar riots) during the SP rule."  

Yogi urged the people not to allow "professional criminals" of the Samajwadi Party to enter the realms of power, adding "Kaval ka bawal" (Muzaffarnagar) is a curse of SP." 

On the contrary, Shivpal Yadav said that the BJP was getting increasingly jittery after seeing the unity in the Samajwadi Party and the Yadav family, adding "They were hoping to cash in on the division but now their hopes have been dashed. This by-election is going to be the beginning of the end for the BJP."

(With ANI/IANS Inputs)