Lucknow. Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Sunday announced that her party will field its candidates in the by-elections to be held on 10 vacant assembly seats in the state in the near future and will fight the elections with full force. Mayawati announced to contest the by-elections in a review meeting of all the senior officials and district presidents of the party’s Uttar Pradesh unit at the state office in Lucknow. BSP, which usually stays away from by-elections, has decided to fight this by-election with full force.
According to a statement issued from the BSP headquarters, Mayawati said, “The official date for the by-elections for the 10 assembly seats that fell vacant in Uttar Pradesh after the Lok Sabha elections has not been announced yet, but the excitement about it is increasing continuously. Mayawati said that people’s interest in these by-elections has increased a lot, especially because the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its government have made it (the by-election) a question of prestige, so the BSP has also decided to field its candidates on all (10) seats in these by-elections and fight the elections with full force.
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The BSP chief also shared a copy of this statement on her official X account. She urged that since BSP is a party of the poor, deprived and oppressed and unlike other parties, it does not run at the behest and behest of big capitalists and rich people, its supporters should play an active role in the party’s movement by cooperating with their whole heart, mind and money. After winning only one seat out of the total 403 seats in the 2022 assembly elections in the state and being completely wiped out in the Lok Sabha elections, BSP’s hopes are pinned on the by-elections.
The BSP chief is now seen in full swing amid the issues of sub-classification and ‘creamy layer’ within the Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) regarding reservation. Nine MLAs of Uttar Pradesh resigned from the Assembly after being elected to the Lok Sabha, while Irfan Solanki has been disqualified from the membership of the Assembly after being sentenced in a criminal case. He was a Samajwadi Party MLA from Sisamau in Kanpur. In this way, a total of 10 seats of the Assembly in the state became vacant.
An official of the Vidhan Sabha said that information about 10 vacant seats has been sent to the Election Commission of India. By-elections are to be held in Karhal, Milkipur, Katehari, Kundarki, Ghaziabad, Khair, Meerapur, Phulpur, Majhawan and Sisamau assembly seats of Uttar Pradesh. However, the by-election program has not been announced yet. Targeting the ruling BJP in the review meeting, the BSP chief claimed that there is anger among the people due to the government’s failure to stop the increasing poverty, unemployment, inflation and backwardness in the state and the entire country and the BJP is constantly trying to divert attention.
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Mayawati alleged that to divert people’s attention from these issues, they (BJP) are resorting to destructive bulldozer politics and are constantly conspiring to create new casteist and religious frenzy/controversy. The BSP chief claimed, “In this sequence, a new law on conversion (has been brought), sub-classification of SC-ST society people and ‘creamy layer’ is a new attempt to divide them. Rejection of caste census, government interference is being done in the operation of mosques-madrasas and Waqf.
The former Chief Minister said that the poor and hardworking class of the people are trying to live with self-respect, earn a livelihood with dignity but the government is not paying enough attention to this. The BSP chief said that the people no longer blindly trust the intentions and policies of the government, so the BSP will have to continue its efforts to win the trust of the people through its policy and principle of ‘Bhujan Hitaay, Bahujan Sukhay’, which is beneficial for the poor and all, and whose electoral benefit is also necessary and natural.
Mayawati also asked that when people of SC-ST category have been given reservation not on the basis of economic but on the basis of social and educational backwardness, then how does the question of ‘creamy layer’ arise in it? She said that the idea of sub-classification of people of these communities is unfair. Attacking the Uttar Pradesh government on the issue of law and order, Mayawati said, “The government’s strictness in the matter of law and order is more on paper and it has no effect on the people of BJP. Raising the issue of floods in many districts of the state, she said that the floods have disrupted the lives of many people.”
Earlier on Sunday, Mayawati claimed that the Congress, which won Lok Sabha seats by promising to protect reservation, seems to be in favour of sub-classification within SCs and STs and is yet to raise its voice on the issue of keeping the ‘creamy layer’ in these communities out of reservation benefits.
