LUCKNOW: BSP president Mayawati on Saturday released the second list of 51candidates for constituencies going to polls in the second phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election on February 14.
The candidates declared in the second list include 23 from the Muslim community, 10 from Scheduled Castes, 12 from OBC, two Brahmins and four others. A total of 55 seats will go to the polls in the second phase. The party would declare the rest of the four names soon, said Mayawati.
The second list of the party comprises names of candidates for assembly segments across Saharanpur, Bijnor, Moradabad, Sambhal, Rampur, Amroha, Badaun, Bareilly and Shahjahanpur districts. The first list of candidates of the Bahujan Samaj Party was released on 15 January.
The BSP has so far declared 109 of 113 candidates for the first two phases.
While the BSP hopes to rework its social engineering magic that sent it to the saddle in Lucknow with a full majority in 2007, diving deep into the two lists released by Mayawati makes it evident that the party is following the same trend of ticket distribution as it did in 2017. In the previous assembly elections, the party had given tickets to 40 per cent (98) Muslim candidates of the total 403.
Similarly, of the 109 candidates declared so far, the BSP has given ticket to 41 Muslims (37.6%), 28 OBC (25.6%), 18 SCs (16.51), 12 Brahmins (11%) and nine others including thakurs, bania, etc. These figures, however, are contrary to the party’s narrative of weaving its social engineering equation mainly around the Muslim-Brahmin combination as the candidates from the Minority community dominate both the lists declared so far whereas the number of Brahmin candidates stands out to be just a dozen.
It may be recalled that BSP national general secretary SC Mishra had held an aggressive campaign to woo the Brahmins through Prabudhh Varg Sammelans across 75 districts of the state from July end to October 9 to woo the Brahmin community. However, the same sentiment is yet to reflect in BSP lists.
Meanwhile, releasing the list of candidates in Lucknow, BSP chief Mayawati also launched a new slogan 'Har polling booth ko jitana hai, BSP ko satta mein lana hai.'(Every polling booth has to be won, BSP has to be brought to power).
Releasing the list of names, the BSP president appealed to her party workers to follow the COVID-19 protocols issued by the Election Commission while working for the victory of candidates to turn the dreams of BR Ambedkar and the party's founder Kanshi Ram into reality.