BSP supremo Mayawati.
– Photo : amar ujala
Expansion
BSP changed the tickets of two candidates on Monday. In this, the Kshatriya candidate from Jaunpur has been removed from the field and the stake has been placed on Yadav, whereas in Basti, the Brahmin candidate has been removed and the Kurmi community has been fielded.
Ignoring all the discussions, the party had fielded Srikala Reddy, wife of powerful former MP Dhananjay Singh, on the Jaunpur parliamentary seat. Dhananjay became MP in the year 2009 on BSP ticket but in the intervening period, he started moving away from the party. From here, BJP has placed its bet on former Maharashtra Home Minister Kripashankar Singh. Due to the presence of Kshatriya candidates from both the parties, there was a fear of division in this vote bank.
Similarly, in Basti, when BSP fielded Dayashankar Mishra, he was seen mobilizing the Brahmin vote bank. This mobilization of his seemed to be causing direct loss to BJP candidate Harish Dwivedi. Now BSP has fielded Lavkush Patel in place of Dayashankar Mishra. Lavkush former MLA late. Jitendra is the son of Kumar Chaudhary. This family is considered close to SP-Congress candidate Ram Prasad Chaudhary.
It is expected that BJP will get direct benefit from the change of candidates on both these seats. BSP has changed 13 candidates so far. Earlier, BSP canceled the ticket of Athar Jamal Lari in Varanasi and fielded Syed Niaz Ali and after a week, Lari was given the green signal. Similarly, in Bhadohi, Irfan Bablu’s ticket was canceled and Harishankar Singh was fielded.