UP polls: BJP announces alliance with Nishad party

LUCKNOW: The BJP announced a pre-poll alliance for the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections with the Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aam Dal or Nishad Party, an outfit comprising members of OBCS belonging to the riverine community.

The announcement was made by Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, BJP’S in-charge of Uttar Pradesh polls, along with state unit chief Swatantra Dev at the party headquarters in Lucknow in the presence of Nishad Party chief Sanjay Nishad.

“We will have an alliance with the Nishad Party. We (Bjpnishad Party) will fight the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections together with strength, and today the leaders of both the parties are making a formal announcement about it,” Pradhan said, after holding quick consultations with top leaders, including chief minister Yogi

Adityanath, Dev and state general secretary (organisation) Sunil Bansal.

Recently, Sanjay Nishad had demanded that the BJP should project him as a deputy chief minister face in the elections. He claimed that Nishads (fishermen) constitute about 18% of total votes and play a deciding role on 160 out of the total 403 assembly seats in the state.

In the 2018 Lok Sabha bypoll in UP, the Samajwadi Party had, with the support of the BSP, fielded Nishad’s son Praveen Kumar Nishad as the party candidate from Gorakhpur.

He won the seat and since then both the BJP as well as the Opposition parties in the state have been trying to rope in the Nishad Party in an alliance. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Nishad Party switched over to the BJP. Praveen is now a Lok Sabha MP from Sant Kabir Nagar on the BJP ticket.

Nishad did not answer questions of reporters during the press conference on Friday. However, party leaders indicated that the announcement would now be reached any moment.

“Not just the Nishad Party, we also have an alliance with the Apna Dal and we will work together to form the government in the state,” Pradhan added.

Reacting to the announcement, Samajwadi Party spokesperson Abdul Hafiz Gandhi said,

“Since Nishad party claims to fight for oppressed communities, it is expected from it that it must ask its alliance partner BJP why Central government opposed caste census in the Supreme Court today. If it cannot ask BJP this relevant question and it goes with BJP in 2022 UP elections then it would be assumed that Nishad Party is aligning with BJP for its personal interest and not for the interest of OBCS.