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SP faces challenges on home turf

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Vishnu Pandey Kanpur

It was more than a coincidence on Saturday when Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav was busy at a public rally in his paternal village in Etawah, his colleague and sitting Etawah Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA), Mahendra Singh Rajput, was pledging allegiance to Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati in Lucknow. The incident has sent shockwaves in the political circles in central UP, a region long regarded as an impregnable SP bastion.

The pre-poll defections, fuelled and forced by altered caste equations post-delimitation, have begun to create bleeding hemorrhages in SP strongholds like Farrukhabad, Firozabad, Badaun and Sambhal. For Mulayam Singh Yadav, the biggest challenge is represented by those who have switched loyalties, mostly by joining the arch-rival BSP.

 

While SP partymen say they don’t know why Mahendra Rajput and veteran Etawah MP Ram Singh Shakya switched to the BSP, both have accused Yadav with favouring his kin in party decisions. Similar accusations were levelled by five-time sitting Badaun MP, Salim Sherwani, who has joined the Congress after the SP turned down a nomination to him.

Mulayam’s nephew and sitting MP from Mainpuri, Dharmendra Yadav, is likely to contest from Badaun on the SP ticket after delimitation has lessened his chances of winning from the constituency. Yadav has fielded himself from Mainpuri against Bollywood singer Tripti Shakya, the BJP candidate, in a bid to retain the prestigious seat as losing Mainpuri would be the SP’s worst humiliation.

The list of former friends turning into foes is so long as to give Yadav sleepless nights and he is leaving no stone unturned to get things back on track. Former state transport minister in the Yadav government and a seven-time MLA from Hardoi constituency, Naresh Agarwal, has also sounded the poll bugle from the Farrukhabad constituency on the BSP ticket. He had quit the SP after a tussle with Amar Singh as did Raj Babbar, a two-time SP MP from Agra, now contesting on the Congress ticket from Fatehpur Sikri (Rural) against twice SP Etawah MP, Raghuraj Shakya.

Even Shakya is also said to be upset after being forced to fight a losing battle against Babbar. Former state irrigation minister and Mulayam’s former close aide, DP Yadav, has also not let the past camaraderie prevent him from entering the electoral battle against his brother and SP general secretary Ramgopal Yadav from the Sambhal constituency on the BSP ticket.

The SP chief is working overtime to cover up the evident candidate crunch. Apart from himself contesting the Mainpuri seat, his son Akhilesh Yadav has been fielded from Firozabad and Kannauj constituencies, the father-son duo accounting for three prestigious seats. Yadav had similarly saved the Bharthana seat in Etawah during the last Assembly elections, contesting himself against a powerful party rebel. He is also devoting more time to his Mainpuri constituency, canvassing with his allies, Lalu and Paswan.

The region between Agra and Kanpur bears a special significance for the SP if the party has to emerge true on its repeated claims of being the ‘kingmaker’ in the post-poll scenario.

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First Published: Apr 13 2009 | 1:25 AM IST

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