The Samajwadi Party, in another shift in strategy, has chosen to ignore most backward castes and give preference to dalits in its first list of 143 candidates for the 2017 Assembly elections.
The Samajwadi Party, in another shift in strategy, has chosen to ignore most backward castes and give preference to dalits in its first list of 143 candidates for the 2017 Assembly elections.
The Samajwadi Party had, till recently, been focusing its attention on most backward castes but the party has now ignored MBCs and given barely six tickets to communities in this group. Instead, the Samajwadi Party has given 23 tickets to dalits which is second only to Muslims who have walked away with 28 tickets. The first list has 21 reserved seats.
Yadavs, the mainstay of the party, have got 19 tickets in their bag while thakurs come a close second with 16 tickets, followed by brahmins who have got 11 tickets. Muslims and yadavs are likely to get a bigger chunk of seats on the remaining seats too.
Youth have also been given representation in the SP list and a number of leaders from youth organisations have managed to get a tickets. “It is clear that the Samajwadi Party is once again banking on the Muslim-yadav combine that shares 47 seats between them. The party also plans to wean away a section of dalits from the BSP. However, it is noteworthy that this is a list of seats that the Samajwadi Party had lost in 2012. Some seats are those that the party has rarely won and are not considered its stronghold. Giving tickets to certain communities on these seats is, therefore, meaningless,” said a senior political analyst.
A senior SP minister, however, denied this and said, “We are aware that there will be an anti-incumbency factor at work in some of the sitting seats and, therefore, we are concentrating on winning a number of new seats. We have worked on each seat and then finalised the names. Moreover, we will be monitoring the progress of the candidate on each seat and if any candidate is found lacking, we will replace him.”
In fact, within hours of releasing the list, the party changed its candidate in Saharanpur and cancelled a ticket in Muzaffarnagar.
Meanwhile, the release of the first list of candidates has caused considerable heartburn among the sitting SP MLAs who feel that their names should have been cleared first.
“It has been a tradition that the names of sitting legislators are announced first. Keeping sitting MLAs on hold smacks of a conspiracy and this has left us apprehensive. The party leadership should clearly inform legislators who are not being re-nominated so that they can look for other options,” said a SP MLA.
The party, sources said, had not declared sitting seats precisely because of reports that some legislators were hobnobbing with other parties.
