03-14-2007, 06:21 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Maya snubs Congress, woos upper castes </b>
Pioneer News Service | New Delhi
Snubbing the Congress overtures for formation of a broad-based alliance for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly poll, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Tuesday announced candidates for all the <b>403 constituencies and went all out to woo the upper caste voters. Mayawati will herself not contest the Assembly poll</b>.
<b>Till Monday, the Congress and Jan Morcha allies were pleading with Mayawati to forge an alliance </b>or electoral understanding to take on both the Samajwadi Party and the BJP. <b>Senior Congress leader PR Dasmunsi had gone on record saying "we are talking to all parties other than the SP and the BJP."</b>Â
Leaving the Congress the humiliating option to join hands with the effete Jan Morcha, Mayawati has once again rejected pre-poll alliance and decided to cast her net wide outside the traditional Dalit support base. <span style='color:red'><b>Gone is the distrust for the upper castes who were once greeted by her with slogans of "tilak, taraju or talwar, usko maro jute char!"</b></span>
<b>In a move aimed at making a dent in the BJP's vote bank, Mayawati has given maximum tickets to upper castes, mainly Brahmins.</b> This is also a reflection on the changing reality of UP politics where the division of the OBC and Dalit votes has left their leaders knocking at the door of the upper castes.
<b>The BSP list includes 139 upper caste, 110 OBCs, 61 Muslims and 94 Scheduled Caste nominees</b>.
The BSP chief categorically stated that she would give all her time for campaigning and so she herself would not contest.
"After becoming the Chief Minister I will contest the by-election as any MLA can vacate seat for me," she clarified.
<b>In the exercise taken up by the BSP supremo, though the tickets to the Backward Castes and Muslims have come down by 17 and 24, respectively, as Muslims got 85 tickets and OBCs 127 seats in the last Assembly elections. But observers feel that the scaling down of seats of the two communities is based on the hard calculation of the performance in the last Assembly election and the current caste equations in the State.</b>
To counter the increasing influence of the BJP among upper castes after the poll victory in Punjab and Uttarakhand elections, she has increased the number of Brahmin candidates to 86 as against 37 in the last election. Similarly, Thakurs have got 38 tickets in comparison to 36 last time. The trading community has got 14 tickets while Kayasthas can only have the pride of being represented in one seat.
Though only 89 seats are reserved for SCs, the BSP has given tickets to 93 persons belonging to this category.
Interestingly, contrary to the expectations of Sonia Gandhi who lost no time trying to woo the blue brigade chief, <b>BSP has fielded a candidate even in Rahul Gandhi's 'empire' Amethi, and that too, she has given the ticket to a Sonia family loyalist, Ashish Shukla.</b>Â <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> He was a Congress nominee in the last Assembly election and was supposedly a close confidante of local MP Rahul Gandhi. He was also an accused in attempt to murder former Union Minister Sanjay Singh in 1989 when the latter was contesting the election on a Janata Dal ticket after revolting from the Congress.
Though the BSP chief made it clear that the list was final, she said in case a change was to be made the caste of the candidate would not be altered. She also reiterated that her party had no plans to have an alliance with any party, either before or after the poll.
<b>The party has also given tickets to at least one dozen sitting MLAs belonging to the BJP, SP and from among Independents. </b>While nearly half a dozen sitting MLAs have been denied party ticket, three were lucky enough to get nomination from the party despite leaving it earlier to help Mulayam Singh Yadav form his Government.
The constituency of two MLAs have also been changed. Party MLA from Fatehpur Anand Prakash Lodhi will now contest the Khaga seat in the same district while Independent MLA Mahesh Trivedi has been directed to Derapur instead of Rajpur in Kanpur Dehat, from where he was elected in the last election
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Pioneer News Service | New Delhi
Snubbing the Congress overtures for formation of a broad-based alliance for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly poll, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Tuesday announced candidates for all the <b>403 constituencies and went all out to woo the upper caste voters. Mayawati will herself not contest the Assembly poll</b>.
<b>Till Monday, the Congress and Jan Morcha allies were pleading with Mayawati to forge an alliance </b>or electoral understanding to take on both the Samajwadi Party and the BJP. <b>Senior Congress leader PR Dasmunsi had gone on record saying "we are talking to all parties other than the SP and the BJP."</b>Â
Leaving the Congress the humiliating option to join hands with the effete Jan Morcha, Mayawati has once again rejected pre-poll alliance and decided to cast her net wide outside the traditional Dalit support base. <span style='color:red'><b>Gone is the distrust for the upper castes who were once greeted by her with slogans of "tilak, taraju or talwar, usko maro jute char!"</b></span>
<b>In a move aimed at making a dent in the BJP's vote bank, Mayawati has given maximum tickets to upper castes, mainly Brahmins.</b> This is also a reflection on the changing reality of UP politics where the division of the OBC and Dalit votes has left their leaders knocking at the door of the upper castes.
<b>The BSP list includes 139 upper caste, 110 OBCs, 61 Muslims and 94 Scheduled Caste nominees</b>.
The BSP chief categorically stated that she would give all her time for campaigning and so she herself would not contest.
"After becoming the Chief Minister I will contest the by-election as any MLA can vacate seat for me," she clarified.
<b>In the exercise taken up by the BSP supremo, though the tickets to the Backward Castes and Muslims have come down by 17 and 24, respectively, as Muslims got 85 tickets and OBCs 127 seats in the last Assembly elections. But observers feel that the scaling down of seats of the two communities is based on the hard calculation of the performance in the last Assembly election and the current caste equations in the State.</b>
To counter the increasing influence of the BJP among upper castes after the poll victory in Punjab and Uttarakhand elections, she has increased the number of Brahmin candidates to 86 as against 37 in the last election. Similarly, Thakurs have got 38 tickets in comparison to 36 last time. The trading community has got 14 tickets while Kayasthas can only have the pride of being represented in one seat.
Though only 89 seats are reserved for SCs, the BSP has given tickets to 93 persons belonging to this category.
Interestingly, contrary to the expectations of Sonia Gandhi who lost no time trying to woo the blue brigade chief, <b>BSP has fielded a candidate even in Rahul Gandhi's 'empire' Amethi, and that too, she has given the ticket to a Sonia family loyalist, Ashish Shukla.</b>Â <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> He was a Congress nominee in the last Assembly election and was supposedly a close confidante of local MP Rahul Gandhi. He was also an accused in attempt to murder former Union Minister Sanjay Singh in 1989 when the latter was contesting the election on a Janata Dal ticket after revolting from the Congress. Though the BSP chief made it clear that the list was final, she said in case a change was to be made the caste of the candidate would not be altered. She also reiterated that her party had no plans to have an alliance with any party, either before or after the poll.
<b>The party has also given tickets to at least one dozen sitting MLAs belonging to the BJP, SP and from among Independents. </b>While nearly half a dozen sitting MLAs have been denied party ticket, three were lucky enough to get nomination from the party despite leaving it earlier to help Mulayam Singh Yadav form his Government.
The constituency of two MLAs have also been changed. Party MLA from Fatehpur Anand Prakash Lodhi will now contest the Khaga seat in the same district while Independent MLA Mahesh Trivedi has been directed to Derapur instead of Rajpur in Kanpur Dehat, from where he was elected in the last election
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