Leaders flock to Mainpuri as campaign gathers steam
AGRA: Ten days before voting in the Mainpuri Lok Sabha bypoll on December 5, the campaign seems to have gathered steam with leaders of various hues flocking to the parliamentary constituency.
The campaign has got extra intensity as Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s patch-up with his uncle Shivpal Yadav has forced the BJP to redraw its strategy.
The Jaswant Nagar assembly segment represented by Shivpal, who has openly declared his support for SP candidate Dimple Yadav, now poses a new challenge for the BJP.
For his part, Akhilesh Yadav is leaving no stone unturned on the campaign trail. Former BJP minister-turned-SP leader Swami Prasad Maurya, too has visited Mainpuri to address backward class voters other than Yadavs.
For the BJP, deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak is camping in Mainpuri. His public meetings are lined up in Kishni, Karhal and Jaswant Nagar.
Uttar Pradesh BJP president Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary was in Jasawant Nagar on Wednesday and sought votes for party candidate Raghuraj Singh Shakya.
He targeted the Samajwadi Party for alleged ‘goondaism’ and motivated BJP workers to remind voters about the purported lawlessness during SP regime. Chaudhary also addressed a meeting in Kishni on Thursday.
Union minister of state for law and justice SP Singh Baghel was in Mainpuri on Wednesday and listed the development schemes of the Modi government.
Baghel, the Agra MP, spoke about how the late Mulayam Singh Yadav’s victory in 2019 Lok Sabha election was lower than expected despite the SP being in alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) then.
Another BJP leader, tourism minister Jaiveer Singh, is addressing street corner meetings in Mainpuri city where he is the local MLA. The BJP had wrested the Mainpuri city assembly seat from the SP in the February-March state polls.