Lucknow, Aug. 5 -- Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday alleged that the BJP had "deliberately" lost the recent assembly bypolls in Bihar's Bankipur and Madhya Pradesh's Datia to create a false impression that elections could not be questioned and to deflect criticism over the electoral process. Addressing a Brahmin Sammelan organised at the party's state headquarters here on the birth anniversary of veteran socialist leader Janeshwar Mishra, Yadav claimed that the ruling party had intentionally refrained from employing the "model" it had allegedly used in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal elections. "The BJP deliberately lost these bypolls because it wanted to check whether elections could be won without dishonesty. It did not adopt in Bankipur and Datia the model that it had adopted in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The BJP has lost these byelections only to mislead the people," Yadav alleged.
Claiming that the BJP wanted to weaken the opposition's criticism of the electoral process, he said, "Now they will say that opposition parties will no longer raise questions about EVMs. They have deliberately lost these bypolls to deceive the public." Taking a swipe at the BJP over its defeat in the Bankipur bypoll, Yadav said the ruling party's leaders were themselves celebrating the loss. "After losing the Bankipur election, BJP leaders themselves are distributing sweets among their own colleagues. Just wait, by the time elections come, all those sitting in the Uttar Pradesh government will be roaming around with boxes of sweets asking someone to accept them. But Samajwadi Party workers will not take even one of them into our fold," he said. In an apparent message to former SP leaders, including Manoj Kumar Pandey, who have left the party and are now ministers in the Yogi Adityanath government, Yadav said the vacancies created by their departure would be filled by committed party workers. "Those who have left us are free to go. It is we who will fill the space they have vacated," he said.
In the recently held bypoll to the Bankipur assembly constituency in Bihar, vacated by BJP president Nitin Nabin, Jan Suraaj party leader Prashant Kishor emerged victorious, while the BJP also lost the Datia assembly bypoll in Madhya Pradesh, where Congress candidate Ghanshyam Singh won. The Bankipur contest was widely seen as a prestige battle for the BJP.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.