With the dates for the bypoll to 10 Vidhan Sabha seats announced, parties will kick off campaigning in earnest.
In terms of reactions, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati was first off the block and reiterated that the party would fight the election alone.
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The Samajwadi Party (SP) which has announced candidates for six seats is likely to stick to its PDA (Pichla Dalit Adivasi) formula. The party has just finished a Samvidhan Bachao Yatra. It started on October 2 and culminated in Milkipur in Ayodhya on October 10. Both dates were significant. The first is the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and the second is the death anniversary of former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Sunil Singh, party spokesperson said, “We are not complacent after our Lok Sabha performance. Meetings are being held all across the state to identify the reasons behind our success and also our failure.”
With the Samajwadi Party’s PDA push, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is likely to focus on the most backward castes- especially in Katehri and Majhwa. This is also likely to be the case in Milkipur for which an election date is yet to be announced given that an election petition filed against the incumbent Faizabad MP Awadhesh Prasad on grounds of corrupt electoral practices in the previous Vidhan Sabha polls, is still pending.
The BJP’s strategy will be in keeping with the recent calls for unity by the state’s CM, Yogi Adityanath. His recent ‘batenge toh katenge’ (we will lose if divided) remark will guide the party. The government has made good symbolic use of the upcoming Mahakumbh to drive this message as well. 71 mahamandaleshwars for the ritual will come from the most backward castes.
The BJP might face some internal quibbles with its alliance partners. Anupriya Patel of the Apna Dal has often reiterated the demand for a caste census, though she has also hit out at the Congress and the Samajwadi Party for not getting the census done when the parties were in power.
Another BJP ally Sanjay Nishad might also be miffed as he wants the Nishad Party to contest from Katehri and Manjhwa. The BJP is likely to give just one seat to the party and even then might insist that the candidate fight on the BJP symbol.
It is noteworthy that in 2022 both these seats had been given to the Nishad Party.