Aiming at retaining power in Uttar Pradesh in 2017 Assembly election, ruling Samajwadi Party is focusing on the 172 seats it could not win in the 2012 polls for the 403-member House and considers itself well-oiled to take on BJP.
"The party will declare candidates for these seats much in advance," senior party leader Shivpal Yadav said, explaining that the idea was to give sufficient time to the nominees to prepare for victory.
"The process of interviewing and shortlisting candidates has been finished and the list has been sent to the central parliamentary board with recommendations. The candidates for these seats will be declared at least a year before the polls so that they could have ample time to work at the ground level," he told PTI.
In 2012, SP had won 224 seats and the number rose to 231 after bye-elections, but the party has since seen its popularity wane as in last year's Lok Sabha polls, it won only five of the 80 seats in the state where BJP swept by winning 73 seats.
Undeterred by the rise in communal incidents and attack on government over failure to control law and order, Yadav, a senior cabinet minister in the Akhilesh Yadav government, said BJP's "agenda of communalism" will not work is UP as people of the state have understood the reality.
"BJP rakes up various issues just for the sake of political gains. But our government is alert and people have understood the reality," he said.
