Storm brews in SP over ticket distribution

SP sources said state SP president Akhilesh Yadav has emerged as the sole power centre in the party after his father Mulayam Singh Yadav. Many aides of Shivpal Singh,the younger brother of Mulayam Singh,were either denied tickets or the candidate was changed later.

So far,the party has announced candidates for 324 seats out of total 403 in the UP Assembly. SP sources said over three dozen party leaders identified to be close to Shivpal Singh have been denied tickets.

Prominent among them are Jitendra Yadav from Sikandarabad in Gautam Budh Nagar district. Interestingly,the party gave ticket to Badrul Islam from this seat who was in the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and not even a member of the SP. He had contested the 2004 Lok Sabha elections from Bulandshahr as RLD candidate against Kalyan Singh.

The others are Sandhya Katheria,sitting MLA from Kishni in Mainpuri,Arif Beg from Bhadoi in Sant Ravi Das Nagar district,Ribu Srivastava from Varanasi cantt and Santosh Pandey from Lambhua in Sultanpur district.

The name of Santosh Pandey figured in the first list of candidates announced by the party,but later his elder brother was given ticket. Both are now at loggerheads.

After the first list of candidates was released in April,senior SP leader and national vice-president Kazi Rashid Masood had alleged that all the tickets were decided by the father and son duo and no meeting of the parliamentary board was held.

Voices of discontent are audible in about 80 Assembly seats. Party workers are still hopeful that changes could be effected in some seats and are,therefore,are going public with their resentment. But a sense of unease is very much palpable if one spends a few hours at the party’s state headquarters.

“Some changes had to be made because delimitation had changed the profile of several constituencies. In several districts,deserving candidates have been denied tickets,for the reason best known to the party high command,” said Rashid Masood.

According to party sources,SP veteran Ramvir Singh is upset after Arvind Singh Gope was shifted to the Ramnagar seat in Barabanki district. Ram Vir Singh had been nursing this constituency since the past several years and was hopeful of getting the ticket this time.

Similarly,Vijma Yadav has been shifted to Phulpur seat from Jhusi in Allahabad and the ticket of the sitting Phulpur legislator Jokhu Lal Yadav is still undecided.

In Sarojini Nagar in Lucknow,the claim of former MLA Shyam Kishore Yadav has been ignored and the ticket has gone to Sharda Prasad Shukla. The sitting MLA from Sultanpur,Anup Sanda,has been denied a re-nomination and his supporters are said to be considerably upset with the party high command’s decision.

Another claimant from Isauli Assembly seat in Sultanpur was Mani Bhadra Singh who has been replaced with Shakeel. Mani Bhadra Singh,who belongs to an influential political family of Sultanpur,is said to be ‘seething with rage’.

In Hardoi,the SP ticket has gone to a novice Mahavir Singh (from Sandila),ignoring the claims of veteran party leader Avadh Kumar Singh Bagi. Mahavir Singh’s sole claim to fame is that he is independent MLA Raja Bhaiyya’s brother-in-law and the latter had recommended his name.

A senior SP leader on condition of anonymity admitted that ticket distribution had left many feathers ruffled in the party. “There is still time and the party leaders must resolve these issues or else we may have to lose heavily in the elections due to internal sabotage. You can fight a political rival but you cannot fight your own people,” he said.