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Journalism of Courage
The Samajwadi’s Party’s (SP’s) decision to field three “outsiders” in its latest list for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls has caused discontent within the party ranks, with many hoping for tickets being left out.
On Friday, the SP in its third list sprung a surprise by fielding Advocate Bhanu Pratap Singh from the Meerut seat and retired Additional District Judge (Bijnor) Manoj Kumar from Nagina in the Bijnor district. The party also allotted the Bhadohi seat to the Trinamool Congress, its other ally as part of the Opposition’s INDIA bloc alongside the Congress.
The TMC is likely to pick former Congress MLA Lalitesh Pati Tripathi, who is the grandson of former Uttar Pradesh CM Kamalapati Tripathi, for the seat.
The SP’s MLA from Sardhana, Atul Pradhan, was seeking a ticket from Meerut. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the seat was won by the BJP’s Rajendra Agarwal. He defeated Haji Yaqoob Qureshi of the BSP, which fought the election with the SP, by a slim margin of 4,729 votes.
After the announcement of the list, Pradhan took to X to express his disappointment. “The people of Meerut prayed for me to struggle. I apologise to you all for not getting a chance.”
Speaking to The Indian Express, Pradhan claimed that the SP has put Pratap Singh’s candidature “on hold” and that the party top leadership “is holding deliberations” and “reconsidering its choice to field the lawyer”. Sources in the SP dismissed the claims.
The ticket to Manoj Kumar in Nagina, who joined the SP recently, has also caused some resentment within the party. Nagina MLA Manoj Kumar Paras was seeking a ticket from the seat for his wife Neelam Paras. Nagina, a reserved seat, was contested by the BSP’s Girish Chandra under the SP-BSP partnership in 2019. Chandra won the seat, defeating the BJP’s Yashwant Singh by 1.66 lakh votes.
SP leader Hakim Lal Bind was eyeing the Bhadohi ticket for his wife Asha Devi, while Mahendra Bind, who joined the SP from the BSP, was also hopeful of a ticket. In 2019, the BJP’s Rameshchand Bind won the seat by defeating the BSP’s Rangnath Misra by 43,615 votes.
“The party is ignoring loyal workers. People from outside are being brought in. This demoralises the party’s actual workers,” said a leader in Bhadohi.
Another leader in Bijnor echoed a similar sentiment. “Why should people who have not worked for the party get tickets? It weakens our organisation. The party top leadership has already ruined the aspirations of party workers in 17 Lok Sabha constituencies by giving them to the Congress,” said a senior leader in Bijnor.
Local party leaders say they are disappointed with the Congress share of seats. A leader said that the Congress getting to contest 17 of the 80 seats in the state has “surprised everyone”.
They speak of the Congress track record in the state and say that the Akhilesh Yadav-led leadership decision has been too “accommodating” to the Congress.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress won just the Raebareli seat, losing even senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Amethi seat, and polled a total vote share of 6.36%. In 2014, the Congress had won Amethi and Raebareli, while its vote share was 7.5%.
Some SP leaders also say that “allying with parties in the last four elections has weakened its cadre in the state”.
The SP formed an alliance with the Congress in the 2017 Assembly polls. The partnership ended up winning just 47 of the 403 seats.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the SP contested on 37 seats but won only five. The BSP, which was the SP’s partner at the time, won 10 seats.
Then, in the 2022 Assembly polls, the SP allied with the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP), the Rashtriya Lok Dal, and other smaller parties. The RLD and the SBSP are now with the NDA. The SP had then contested 347 Assembly seats, giving the rest to its allies.
An SP leader says the party gave the Congress 17 seats “because it feared a divide in Muslim votes”.
