BSP supremo Mayawati.
– Photo: Amar Ujala
Expansion
BSP is keeping an eye on the ups and downs regarding ticket distribution among the political parties preparing for the Lok Sabha elections. For this reason, BSP, which was the first to announce the names of candidates in the elections, is taking a cautious step this time. In the last elections, it had not fielded its candidates on more than half the seats in alliance with SP, due to which this time the party has to work afresh to select candidates on these seats.
BSP supremo Mayawati is holding daily meetings with divisional and sector in-charges to select candidates. The party is giving importance to those contenders who got more than two lakh votes in the last elections. In seats where such candidates are not available, the party can adopt the strategy of giving tickets to its zonal coordinator only. If sources are to be believed, the party officials have so far submitted the list of most of the claimants to the BSP supremo, on which brainstorming is going on. The names of these candidates are expected to be finalized by next week.
The alliance is incomplete without BSP
Questions have started being raised again regarding the SP-Congress alliance. People of both the parties believe that it is not easy for the alliance to win UP without BSP. Some Congress leaders are not satisfied with getting only 17 seats, however, instead of openly opposing, they are putting pressure on the party high command to bring BSP into the alliance and propose to field candidates on 25 seats.
The rebels also kept their distance
One difficulty facing the BSP, which has announced to contest the Lok Sabha elections alone, is that till now no small party has initiated an alliance with it. Rebel leaders of other parties are also hesitant in joining BSP. BSP also has its eyes on those leaders to whom SP, Congress and BJP have not given tickets. If these leaders adopt a rebellious attitude and contact BSP, then the path of BSP may also become easier with them.
Last time the first list was released on March 22.
After the alliance with SP in the last Lok Sabha elections, BSP had released its first list on 22 March 2019, in which the names of candidates were announced for 11 seats in Western Uttar Pradesh. The second list containing the names of five candidates was released on 9 April 2019. Let us tell you that in the last elections, BSP 38, SP 37 and RLD had fielded their candidates on 3 seats.
