Lucknow: With the sound and fury in Samajwadi Party catching the fancy of its archrival BSP, its supremo Mayawati on Saturday told senior leaders and party candidates to make voters aware of the family feud in the ruling party and not fritter away their ballots to indirectly help BJP.
Mayawati convened a meeting of senior BSP leaders and party candidates for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections to issue necessary directives for going to polls.
The BSP supremo, who has been highlighting the sharp divide in SP at her public meetings and rallies, asked senior leaders to make the electorate aware of the feud which did not augur well for the state’s development. “If the ruling party cannot put its own house in order, what can it do for the welfare of the state,” she was quoted as saying by a leader who attended the meeting but requested anonymity.
Mayawati has been cautioning Muslim voters not to waste their ballots by backing the faction-ridden SP as split in their votes would ultimately help BJP.
Terming BJP as the “friendly party” of Samajwadi Party, she told party workers today that in order to divert peoples attention from BJP’s unfulfilled poll promises, Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought note ban without any preparation and now he is indulging in gimmicks and issuing statements to ward off any adverse impact in the elections.
As Muslims are a force to reckon with, accounting for 20 per cent of the state’s population, a lion’s share of BSP candidates belong to that community. The party has announced its decision to give 97 Muslim candidates tickets to wean them away from SP.
In its first list of 100 candidates, there were 36 Muslim candidates, while the second one had 22 nominees from that community. The third list of 100 more candidates released on Saturday carries names of 24 Muslims. (PTI)
