Uttar Pradesh by-elections: BSP to field candidates in all 10 constituencies

Lucknow: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Sunday announced that her party will field candidates in all 10 constituencies in Uttar Pradesh where by-elections will be held. The Election Commission is yet to announce the schedule for by-elections for Karhal, Milkipur, Katehari, Kundarki, Ghaziabad, Khair, Meerapur, Phulpur, Majhawan and Sisamau constituencies.

In a statement issued after a meeting of district chiefs, in-charges and functionaries of BSP state units, the party said Mayawati reviewed preparations for the upcoming Assembly by-elections.

“Ten Assembly constituencies have fallen vacant after the Lok Sabha elections. No official announcement of the date has been made so far, but the activities related to this situation are continuously increasing, especially the ruling BJP and its government have made it a matter of prestige, due to which the interest of the people for the by-elections has also increased,” he said.

“The BSP will field its candidate in all these assembly constituencies, where by-elections will be held, and will contest the by-elections with all its might,” the statement said.

By-elections were required for nine seats as MPs were elected to the Lok Sabha. The Sisamau seat fell vacant due to the disqualification of SP leader Irfan Solanki as MP after he was sentenced to jail in a criminal case.

Attacking the BJP, Mayawati said, “There is huge anger among the public as the BJP government at the central and state levels has not only failed to stop rising poverty, unemployment, rising prices and underdevelopment but has also failed to pay adequate attention to these issues.”

“Therefore, to divert people’s attention from these issues, they are resorting to destructive bulldozer politics (vidhvansak bulldozer raajniti) and are continuously hatching conspiracies to create further caste and communal violence or conflicts,” she said.

“In this sequence, a new law on religious conversion (has been introduced), sub-classification of people from SC-ST society and creamy layer are new attempts to divide them, denial of caste census, government interference in functioning of mosques-madrasas and Waqf are underway,” the BSP chief said

While all this is happening, the poor and the working class are struggling to live with self-respect and earn a living, she said.

She said that now people do not blindly believe in the intention and policy of the government, the BSP should continue its efforts to win their trust through its policy and principle of ‘bahujan hitaaye, bahujan sukhaaye’.

Attacking the BJP-led Uttar Pradesh government on the issue of law and order, Mayawati said that in this matter, the government’s stringency is more on paper and it is ineffective on BJP people. Earlier on Sunday, Mayawati on X said that the Congress, which won Lok Sabha seats on a promise to protect reservation, seems to be in favour of downgrading within SCs and STs and is yet to raise its voice against the issue of excluding the creamy layer of these communities from the benefits of quota.

On August 1, the Supreme Court ruled that states are constitutionally empowered to make sub-classifications within Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and asked that the creamy stratum be excluded from reservation.

“Congress national president (Mallikarjun Kharge) has said that before revealing the party’s stand on downgrading of SCs and STs, his party will consult NGOs, lawyers and others. This clearly shows that the Congress is in favour of downgrading,” Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati said in a series of messages on X in Hindi.

“The Congress has been talking vaguely on the creamy layer issue. Despite having 99 MLAs, no voice was raised in Parliament till adjournment to overturn the Supreme Court decision, while this party won these seats in the name of safeguarding the Constitution and reservation,” she said.

Mayawati also said after the BSP press conference on Saturday, “We have taken cognizance of the statement made by the Congress president, in which the credit for reservation has been given not to Baba Saheb Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar but to Pandit Nehru and Gandhiji, in which there is not even an iota of truth.”

“While in reality, all the credit for reservation goes to Baba Saheb Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar, whom the Congress conspired to prevent from entering the Constituent Assembly and also defeated in the elections. He was also forced to resign from the post of Law Minister,” Mayawati said.