UP bypolls: BSP to field candidates in all 10 assembly seats, announces Mayawati

Addressing a meeting of the BSP office bearers in Lucknow, Mayawati also said that Dalit ideologue B R Ambedkar should be credited for providing reservation to the SC/ST and not Mahatma Gandhi or India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Lucknow: BSP supremo Mayawati on Sunday said that her party would be putting up its candidates on all the ten assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh on which by-polls would be held in the near future.

Addressing a meeting of the BSP office bearers here, Mayawati also said that Dalit ideologue B R Ambedkar should be credited for providing reservation to the SC/ST and not Mahatma Gandhi or India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Mayawati asked the party leaders and workers to ‘expose’ the rival parties over their stand on the recent Supreme Court judgement on reservation and slammed the BJP over the amended law on conversion in the state.

BSP, which had only one MLA in the UP assembly, usually refrained from contesting by-polls and Mayawati’s decision to contest in it this time appeared to be a calculated political move aimed at countering the firebrand Dalit leader and Bhim Army founder Chandrashekhar alias Ravan to make a dent into her core vote bank.

Chandrashekhar, who won as an independent candidate from the Bijnor constituency in this year's Lok Sabha polls, has declared that his party will be contesting all the ten seats going to the by-polls.

Of the ten seats where by-polls are scheduled to be held, five were held by the Samajwadi Party (SP), three by the BJP and one each by the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and Nishad Party, both alliance partners in the NDA.

Although the outcome of the assembly by-polls would have no effect on the BJP-led government in the state, the saffron party, after its dismal performance in the state in the LS polls, would certainly go all out to regain the seats where they are in power and also wrest a few from the SP.

One of the seats going to the by-poll was Milkipur, which is part of the Faizabad LS constituency of which Ayodhya is also a part. Milkipur MLA and SP leader Awadhesh Prasad had emerged as a giant killer in the LS polls when he defeated BJP veteran Lallu Singh from Faizabad seat much to the shock of the saffron party.

By-polls will also be held in the Mainpuri seat from where SP president Akhilesh Yadav was elected in the 2022 assembly polls. Akhilesh was elected from the Kannauj constituency in the Lok Sabha polls.

In the 2024 LS polls, BJP won 33 seats while its alliance partners RLD and Apna Dal won 2 and 1 respectively in UP. In the 2019 LS polls, BJP and its alliance partners had won 64 seats. The SP won 37 seats while its alliance partner Congress bagged 6 seats in this year's LS polls. BSP had drawn a blank.