Changing electoral candidates is not new in politics, say analysts. But what has raised eyebrows in the SP’s case is the scale of it, they point out. For instance, the party has switched its nominee for Meerut a second time within a few days. Now Sunita Verma will contest from the seat, replacing Atul Pradhan, who earlier replaced Bhanu Pratap Singh. In a list shared on social media site X on Monday night, the Akhilesh Yadav-led party had announced Pradhan and Suresh Chand Kadam as its candidates for the Meerut and Agra (Reserved) seats, respectively.
Soon after being replaced, Pradhan took to X and said, “Whatever is the decision of National President Shri Akhilesh Yadav Ji, I accept it. I will soon sit and talk with my colleagues.” The Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded “TV’s Ram” Arun Govil from Meerut.
In Baghpat, SP’s Amarpal Sharma has replaced Manoj Chaudhary, with the party apparently deciding to play the “Brahmin card” in Jatland.
There was chaos for the SP in the Rampur and Moradabad Lok Sabha constituencies with two candidates each filing their nominations from the seats. In Rampur, Asim Raja, who contested the 2022 Lok Sabha by-election as an SP candidate, filed his nomination papers, claiming to be the party’s pick. Mohibullah Nadvi, the imam of a mosque in Delhi, did the same. Nadvi told reporters that he was the party’s authorised candidate and SP president Akhilesh Yadav was backing him.
In Moradabad, SP leader Ruchi Veera and area MP ST Hasan both filed their nomination papers, while claiming to be the party’s official candidate. Samajwadi Party spokesperson Fakhrul Hasan Chand said the SP is a democratic party and there is no confusion over its Lok Sabha candidates.
‘Could demotivate leaders’
“For the first time, changing of candidates on such a mass level has been witnessed and this is certainly not a good sign for the Akhilesh Yadav-led party,” said political analyst Shashikant Pandey. “Candidates being considered for the Lok Sabha polls certainly have their own political base in their respective regions. Shifting them at the last moment may send a wrong message not only among the leaders but also among their vote base, which may turn things against the party. It also adds to disappointment among the candidates and demotivates them.”
Pandey also said that it reflects a poor input mechanism in the party. “Shortlisting candidates is a gruelling exercise that is carried out on the basis of inputs from workers of the party in those regions. And such frequent changing of names reflects the SP’s poor input mechanism and party structure. It also shows that the party is less aware of the caste chemistry in various constituencies. In the 2022 assembly elections too, the SP’s ticket distribution drew a lot of criticism,” he said.
BJP targets Akhilesh
An SP ally till recently, Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Jayant Singh also took a dig at the party. “In opposition, only the fortunate one gets a chance, maybe only for a few hours, to be a Lok Sabha candidate. And those who are still in the race are the fortunate ones,” he said.
BJP spokesperson Anand Dubey said his party has a strong mechanism through which the names of candidates are shortlisted at various levels and announced only after the nod of the central committee. “But the entire mechanism of the SP seems to have been dismantled. The frequent changing of names of candidates reflects a fear of the BJP and a state of confusion. Akhilesh Yadav, who inherited the party from his father, actually doesn’t know how to run the party, whom to field, and from where,” Dubey said.
The BJP spokesperson also alleged that Akhilesh Yadav was just the face of the SP while key decisions were being made by others. He claimed that only the BJP was contesting the upcoming Lok Sabha polls to form the government and serve the nation while all other parties in UP were only looking out for their vested interests –the Congress to register its presence, Bahujan Samaj Party just for show, and SP to protect the family (parivar).
Comments
0 comment