NEW DELHI: While exuding confidence in forming government in the five states where polling has concluded, major political parties like the BJP and Congress have started efforts to bring winnable independent candidates on their side.
“Independent legislators, especially in UP, are likely to be more in demand this time. The reason is that none of the parties, including the ruling BJP, is confident of gaining absolute majority because of the neck-to-neck fight,” said the poll manager of a prominent regional party in Uttar Pradesh.
He added that independent candidates who have a strong winning probability are being approached by all the parties through their local leaders.
According to a reliable BJP source, the party’s national president JP Nadda, at an internal meeting on the eve of the last phase of Assembly elections on Sunday, asked leaders from UP and other states to continue talks with the independent candidates having a strong probability of winning.
Sources said a good number of influential candidates after they were denied tickets by their parties contested as independents in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa and Uttarakhand this time and gave a tough fight to the official candidates.
The sources said influential local leaders and senior office-bearers of parties like the Samajwadi Party, BJP, Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party, after receiving feedback from field workers, have started assessing the winning probability of locally influential independent candidates.
“The independent legislators may prove the last resort to the party which fails to gain a majority by a narrow margin,” remarked political analyst Dr RK Verma.