No tickets on sale - BSP will field its cadres in polls

Lucknow, Dec 13 (IANS)To ward off allegations of seeking money for tickets, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Uttar Pradesh is planning to field more candidates from its cadre than outsiders in the next year’s Lok Sabha elections.

BSP president Mayawati had asked leaders to select candidates from among the cadre and committed workforce of the party.

The move stems from the fact that outsiders have often accused BSP of demanding money in exchange of tickets.

The most recent example was BSP’s import from Congress, Imran Masood, who alleged that he was expelled from the party because he could not cough up Rs 5 crore from Saharanpur and give it to the party as was demanded from him.

“To keep such allegations at bay, Behenji wants our own people to be given the chance to contest elections. When people from the community are given tickets, it will reinforce the message that BSP is the party for Dalits,” said a party functionary.

The party wants to keep Jatavs on its side and get back the non-Jatav Dalits that have moved away from it.

One of the easiest ways to do it is to give the old loyalists and committed workers a chance to contest elections.

The BSP has also realised that not many Muslims are coming to its fold.

“The party has also learnt from its failures in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections and the urban local body (ULB) polls in May this year. In the 2022 Assembly polls, bhaichara sammelans did not bring upper cast votes to the party in the proportion expected.

"In ULB polls 2023, Muslim vote got split. The BSP, which fielded Muslim candidates on 11 of the 17 mayoral seats, lost even the two seats that it had won in 2017,” said the functionary.

In another development, the party has revived the practice of organising cadre camps, wherein workers will reach out to Dalits with the works been done for them.

Such camps were held on a regular basis during the time of Kanshi Ram.