Old trick to avert inevitable defeat, says Akhilesh Yadav as U.P. bypolls rescheduled

If you postpone the byelections, you will see an even bigger loss, SP leader tells saffron party

Speaking on the postponement of byelections to nine Assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav said on Monday (November 4, 2024) that the BJP was resorting to “old tricks”. He alleged that the byelections were postponed to prevent migrant labourers, who had returned home for the holidays, from voting against the BJP.

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“If you postpone the byelections, you will see an even bigger loss. First, the Milkipur byelection was postponed, and now the dates for byelections to the remaining seats have been rescheduled. The BJP has never been so weak. The fact is, due to maha berezgari [massive unemployment] in U.P., people who migrate to different parts of the country for work had come back to U.P. for Deepavali and Chhath holidays and were going to vote to defeat the BJP in the byelections. As soon as the BJP got wind of this, it postponed the byelections, so that people would go back without casting their votes. This is an old trick of the BJP. ‘If we think we will lose, we will postpone it’,” Mr. Yadav said on X.

‘NDA was set to lose at least 7’

The SP further claimed that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was expected to lose at least seven of the nine seats bound for byelection, adding it cannot be a co-incidence that Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Uttar Pradesh Chief minister Yogi Adityanath in New Delhi on November 3 and subsequently, byelections were postponed. “It was clear that the SP was ahead on seven out of nine seats, and the BJP government had all resources at their disposal, including intelligence reports indicating it. But no postponement can save the BJP from being defeated.”

The nine Assembly seats where byelections are scheduled include Sisamau in Kanpur district, Katehri in Ambedkar Nagar, Kundarki in Moradabad, Ghaziabad in Ghaziabad, Majhwan in Mirzapur, Karhal in Mainpuri, Khair in Aligarh, Phulpur in Prayagraj, and Meerapur in Muzaffarnagar.

The byelections were rescheduled to November 20 from November 13 after several political parties, including the BJP, the Bahujan Samaj Party, and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) requested a change in the polling date for certain Assembly segments “due to significant social, cultural, and religious engagements” taking place on November 13, which could inconvenience many citizens, the Election Commission said.

Published - November 04, 2024 09:25 pm IST