SP aims at Kushwaha-shakya-saini vote bank

scam-tainted Babu Singh Kushwaha’s wife and brother

LUCKNOW: The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Saturday opened its door for Shivkanya and Shivsharan, wife and brother of Babu Singh Kushwaha, the scam-tainted former Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) minister, and left many asking why?

As taint seems to be no disqualification as far as the Kushwahas are concerned, political parties virtually scramble to have them in their fold before elections. And with Lok Sabha polls round the corner, it’s the backward caste votebank that forces political parties to lower their guard when it comes to taint.

The Kushwaha-Shakya-Saini vote-bank will be a crucial factor in the coming elections.

A senior SP leader said we were able to en- cash the resentment among the Kushwaha community, the traditional supporters of the BSP, in the assembly election. The Kushwaha-Shakya-Saini castes that have a sizeable presence in Bundelkhand, east Uttar Pradesh and Central UP are a homogeneous group as they are inter related. To ensure the defeat of BSP they voted tactically in support of SP, he said.

Babu Singh Kushwaha was close a confidant of BSP chief Mayawati and he served the party for over 27 years, the SP leader said and added members of his community think that rather than protecting him Mayawati made him an scapegoat.

The BJP could not garner their support as it put his joining the party before the assembly election on hold, he said. The SP had then attacked the BJP for attempting to take in Kushwaha. The result was that the Kushwaha community voted for SP.

With the support of the community the SP made inroads into the forte of BSP (Bundelkhand), Congress (Rae Bareli) and BJP (Faizabad) regions.

Rattled by the SP move, BSP national general secretary Swami Prasad Maurya said the SP ploy would not work as the KushwahaShakya-Saini communities were solidly behind the BSP.

When asked if joining of Shivkanya and Shivsharan in SP would hit the fortunes of BSP in forthcoming Lok Sabha election, Maurya said people of the community know that Mayawati made Babu Singh Kushwaha MLC and minister and that the interests of community were protected under BSP rule.

Kushwaha is at present in jail in the R 5,000 crore National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam.

Meanwhile Rajesh Kumar Mishra, a faculty in sociology department of Lucknow University, said political parties were well aware of the fact that corruption was an issue for the high class and middle class only. The majority of the voters in the hinterland of the state go by caste affinity when it comes to voting. “Blood is thicker than water in politics,” he said.