BSP Chief Mayawati gives final touches to list of candidates for Lok Sabha elections

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati Thursday gave final touches to the list of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections and discussed other important electoral issues at a party meeting here.

The BSP president held a meeting with important district and division-level leaders in Uttar Pradesh, a party release issued here said. According to it, names of party candidates and other important electoral and political issues were discussed at the meeting.

The decisions taken at the meeting will be carried forward after discussions with the top leadership of alliance partner Samajwadi Party (SP), the release said. According to the feedback received during the meeting, the appeals of BSP and SP leaders have had a good impact on the people, it said.

Workers of all the three parties in the alliance, including the Rashtriya Lok Dal, have gotten into election mode, setting aside their differences. After taking the feedback, Mayawati directed her partymen to ensure strict compliance with the model code of conduct.

She also directed BSP workers to ensure that birth anniversaries of party ideologues Kanshi Ram and Bhimrao Ambedkar on March 15 and April 14 respectively are observed in accordance with the poll code.

According to the release, Mayawati asked party workers and leaders to work wholeheartedly to ensure the victory of the BSP-SP-RLD coalition, the release said. The SP and the BSP have stitched together an alliance in Uttar Pradesh, keeping the Congress out, though the two parties decided not to field any candidates in Rae Bareli and Amethi, the traditional strongholds of the grand old party.

Of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state, the SP will contest 37 and the BSP 38, leaving three for the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and two for Sonia Gandhi (Rae Bareli) and Rahul Gandhi (Amethi).

Mayawati cautioned the leaders that the BJP will "use all tricks" to win the elections and said the BSP-SP coalition has emerged as a strong alternative in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh.

She said that there was also a need to keep an eye on the EVMs. The BJP turned out to be a master of failed promises, she alleged, adding the saffron party had tried to bring "achche din" only for itself, leaving the common people "high and dry".

Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress has given Priyanka Gandhi the charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh and Jyotiraditya Scindia western Uttar Pradesh. Both the leaders Wednesday visited ailing Bhim Army chief and Dalit leader Chandrasekhar Azad in a Meerut hospital after the Congress was snubbed by Mayawati when she ruled out any alliance with the grand old party anywhere in the country for the Lok Sabha polls.

-PTI