Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh on Monday alleged that the dates for the Uttar Pradesh by-elections were deliberately postponed to favour the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and said the move has brought the Election Commission under questioning.
The Rajya Sabha MP and AAP’s in-charge of UP affairs also met with Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav here and said his party will campaign for SP in the state.
Earlier in the day, Election Commission rescheduled from November 13 to November 20 the assembly bypolls for all nine in Uttar Pradesh. Along with UP, it also rescheduled the bypolls for four seats in Punjab and one seat in Kerala.
“The dates will be announced when it is convenient for Modi ji and Yogi ji after they are done with inauguration events. If it doesn’t suit them, then there will be no Ayodhya election (Milkipur seat). When it is convenient for them, the by-election dates for Uttar Pradesh will be extended,” Singh told reporters here.
Singh said the Election Commission’s credibility was under question, as well as the rationale behind postponing the election dates in the state.
After his meeting with Akhilesh Yadav, Singh told reporters that the Aam Aadmi Party would support SP candidates.
“Our goal is to defeat the BJP in this by-election, which is spreading hatred and communalism, inciting riots and conflicts across the country,” he said.
On Adityanath’s ‘batoge to katoge’ slogan, Singh said, “Those who do no work, engage in slogans. Yogi ji cannot tell us how many hospitals, schools, or roads have been built by this so-called double-engine government, which is why they are engrossed in a ‘poster war’ instead.”
“They are trying to divide people,” he said about the BJP. “In Uttar Pradesh, they’ve created a situation where two individuals, Mohit Pandey and Aman Gautam, were murdered in police stations in Lucknow, and a retired soldier was beaten inside a police station in Raebareli.
“The government is closing 27,000 schools, 26,000 have already been shut down. They have eaten up OBC reservation benefits, which is why young people are protesting for jobs,” he said.
According to Singh, the BJP’s ultimate objective is to undermine the Constitution and dismantle the reservation system.
“They use posters to distract from this larger agenda, but no Dalit, tribal, or minority in this country is going to fall for their slogans. Everyone will come together to defeat the BJP,” he said.
The EC had on October 15 announced bypolls on nine seats in UP, barring Milkipur (Ayodhya) due to a court case.
Katehari (Ambedkar Nagar), Karhal (Mainpuri), Meerapur (Muzaffarnagar), Ghaziabad, Majhawan (Mirzapur), Sishamau (Kanpur city), Khair (Aligarh), Phulpur (Prayagraj) and Kundarki (Moradabad) are up for bypolls.
Eight of these seats fell vacant after their MLAs were elected as MPs in the Lok Sabha polls this year, while bypoll is being held on the Sishamau seat due to the disqualification of SP MLA Irfan Solanki, who was convicted in a criminal case.
In the 2022 assembly polls, Sishamau, Katehari, Karhal, Milkipur and Kundarki were held by the SP, while the BJP had won Phulpur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan and Khair.
The Meerapur seat was held by the RLD, which is now an ally of the BJP in the NDA.
The Congress is not contesting the bypolls and supporting its INDIA bloc partner SP, while the BSP is contesting solo on all nine seats.
