UP bypolls: BSP to fight all 10 assembly seats, announces Mayawati

Ahead of the bypolls, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Sunday (August 11) announced her party will field candidates in all the 10 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh.

The Election Commission is yet to declare the schedule for the by-elections to Karhal, Milkipur, Katehari, Kundarki, Ghaziabad, Khair, Meerapur, Phulpur, Majhawan and Sisamau assembly seats.

In a statement, released after a meeting of the BSP's state unit district chiefs, office bearers and functionaries, the party said Mayawati reviewed the preparations for the upcoming assembly bypolls.

"Ten assembly constituencies have fallen vacant after the Lok Sabha elections. No official announcement of the date has been made so far but activities pertaining to this are increasing continuously, especially the ruling party, BJP, and its government have made it an issue of prestige, due to which the interest of the people in the bypolls has also increased," it said.

"The BSP will field its candidate in all these assembly constituencies, where by-elections will take place, and will contest the bypolls with full might," the statement said.

By-elections were necessitated for nine seats as the MLAs were elected to the Lok Sabha. The Sisamau seat fell vacant due to the disqualification SP leader Irfan Solanki as MLA after he was sentenced to jail in a criminal case.

Mounting an attack on the BJP, Mayawati said, "There is tremendous anger among the common public as the BJP government at the Centre and in the state has not only failed in stopping rising poverty, unemployment, price rise and backwardness but has also not paid enough attention towards this."

"Hence, to divert the attention of the people from these issues, they are resorting to destructive bulldozer politics (vidhvansak bulldozer raajniti), and are continuously hatching conspiracies to create new casteist and communal violence or dispute," she said.

"In this sequence, a new law on religious conversion (has been brought), sub-classification of people of the SC-ST society and the creamy layer are new attempts to divide them, denying caste census, government interference in the operation of the mosques-madrasas and Waqf are being done," the BSP chief said While these are happening, the poor and the hardworking people are striving to live with self-respect and earn livelihood, she said.

She said now that people are not blindly believing the intention and policy of the government, the BSP must continue its efforts to win the their trust through its policy and principle of "bahujan hitaaye, bahujan sukhaaye".

Attacking the BJP-led Uttar Pradesh government on the issue of law and order, Mayawati said that in this matter, the strictness of the government is more on paper and it is ineffective on the BJP people. Earlier on Sunday, Mayawati on X said that the Congress, which won Lok Sabha seats by promising to protect reservation, seems to be in favour of sub-classification within SCs and STs and is yet to raise its voice against the issue of exclusion of the creamy layer in these communities from the benefits of quota.

On August 1, the Supreme Court held that states are constitutionally empowered to make sub-classifications within scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, and batted for the creamy layer to be excluded from reservation.

"The national president of the Congress (Mallikarjun Kharge) said before disclosing the party's stand on sub-classification of SCs and STs, his party will consult NGOs and lawyers and others. This makes it clear that Congress is in favour of sub-classification," Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati said in a series of posts on X in Hindi.

"The Congress has spoken in a vague manner about the creamy layer issue. Despite it having 99 MPs, no voice was raised in Parliament till the adjournment to nullify the Supreme Court's decision, whereas this party has won these seats in the name of saving the Constitution and reservation," she said.

Mayawati also said after the BSP's press conference on Saturday, "we got to know about the statement given by the Congress president, in which the credit for reservation has been given not to Baba Saheb Dr. Bhimrao ambedkar but to Pandit Nehru and Gandhiji, in which there is not even an iota of truth".

"Whereas in reality the entire credit for reservation goes to Baba Saheb Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar, whom the Congress conspired to prevent from entering the Constituent assembly and also defeated in the elections. He was also forced to resign from the post of Law Minister," Mayawati said.

(With inputs from agencies)