Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati on Sunday said ‘communal’ and ‘casteist’ parties in Uttar Pradesh are getting sleepless nights in the urban body polls as the BSP gave proper representation to Muslims. Ms. Mayawati appealed to people to pay more attention to their own interests and not get carried away by the conspiracies of the opponents. “Politics has gathered momentum due to the BSP giving a proper representation to the Muslim community in the elections for the mayor posts in 17 municipal corporations. Casteist and communal parties are having sleepless nights due to this,” Ms. Mayawati tweeted in Hindi.
The former four-time Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister said the BSP formed successive governments in the State on the ideas of ‘ sarvajan hitay’ and ‘ sarvajan sukhay’(everyone’s happiness, everyone’s welfare), giving proper representation to Muslims and asked people to be wary of the conspiracies of the opposition parties. “The BSP is an Ambedkarite party which follows the ideas and principles of ‘ sarvajan hitay’ and ‘ sarvajan sukhay’,” Ms. Mayawati added.
The Dalit-centric party has allocated symbol to Muslim candidates in 11 out of 17 mayoral seats, including Prayagraj, Moradabad and Mathura. Even in reserved (women) seats like Lucknow and Firozabad, which is reserved for Other Backward Classes (women), the BSP nominated Muslim women candidates, making it clear that it aims for a broader Muslim-Dalit outreach through these municipal polls, considered semi-finals going into the 2024 parliamentary polls.
These elections across 760 urban local bodies will be held for 14,684 posts, including for 17 mayoral seats and 1,420 councillor posts in two phases on May 4 and May 11. The counting of votes is scheduled to take place on May 13.
