Lucknow: Eight MLAs turning their backs on Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav during the Rajya Sabha polls this week was part of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) strategy to weaken the Congress in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, BJP insiders told ThePrint.
Three of the eight SP MLAs who cross-voted or abstained from voting for 10 of the state’s 31 Rajya Sabha seats that went to the polls represent assembly segments in Amethi and Rae Bareli Lok Sabha constituencies from where the Gandhi siblings Rahul and Priyanka are expected to contest. The SP had conceded these seats to the Congress as part of a seat-sharing arrangement.
ThePrint reported earlier how SP’s Jalalpur MLA Rakesh Pandey, Gosainganj MLA Abhay Singh, Gauriganj MLA Rakesh Pratap Singh, Unchahar MLA Manoj Pandey, Kalpi MLA Vinod Chaturvedi, Chail MLA Pooja Pal and Bisauli MLA Ashutosh Maurya by cross-voting in the 27 February polls helped elect BJP’s eighth candidate Sanjay Seth to the Upper House.
That the SP MLA from Amethi, Maharaji Prajapati, abstained from voting, further damaged the SP candidate’s prospects.
“The BJP’s strategy is to put up a difficult fight for the Gandhis in Amethi and Rae Bareli. Since both Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi are most likely to fight from Amethi and Rae Bareli constituencies, having regional satraps like Rakesh Pratap Singh and Manoj Pandey on our side will help us dent the vote share of the Gandhis in these constituencies,” a UP BJP leader told ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
Mirza Asmer Beg, professor of political science at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), told ThePrint that the BJP still considers the Congress as its main adversary at the national level and wants to send a message by defeating the Gandhis.
“When it comes to Lok Sabha polls, Congress is of course the BJP’s main adversary, and not the SP. Even a weakened Congress is an adversary for BJP in the national electoral arena. Poaching of MLAs has also been done to show that the alliance is unable to keep its own flock together. Rae Bareli is important symbolically and influential leaders leaving the alliance would have a negative consequence on Congress’s fortune on the seat,” he said.
Beg added that those associated with politicians with criminal antecedents like Amethi, MLA Maharaji Prajapati’s husband and former state minister Gayatri Prajapati are under enhanced pressure from investigative agencies including the ED and the CBI.
“The BJP has precipitated a trend to unleash the ED and CBI on opposition parties like never before. Those with criminal antecedents like Gayatri Prajapati would definitely feel the pressure of the ruling party. The intensity of using investigative agencies is unprecedented in this regime,” he said.
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3 MLAs who turned back on Akhilesh facing probes
While seven SP MLAs cross-voted, the biggest jolt to the Akhilesh Yadav-led party came in the form of its Unchahar MLA Manoj Pandey resigning as chief whip in the assembly minutes before polling began. This led to speculation that Pandey may defect to the BJP and contest from Rae Bareli in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
A former chairman of the Rae Bareli Nagar Palika Parishad, Pandey started his political career with the SP’s youth wing in the 1990s before switching over to the BJP in the 2000s only to return to the SP in 2006.
In 2021, the vigilance department had sought an approval from the UP government to probe allegations that Pandey had amassed disproportionate assets.
Asked why he voted in favour of the BJP, Rakesh Pratap Singh, who has been with the Samajwadi Party for 21 years, told the media he followed the ‘voice of his conscience’. A three-time MLA, he defeated his closest rival, BJP’s Chandra Prakash Mishra, by a margin of nearly 7,000 votes to bag Gauriganj for the SP in the 2022 assembly polls.
Party sources, however, said Singh had been putting out feelers to the BJP these past few months and also wrote to UP Assembly Speaker Satish Mahana suggesting that a delegation of all MLAs who believe in Ram attend the consecration ceremony held in Ayodhya in January this year.
Singh was embroiled in a controversy ahead of the UP civic polls last year when he allegedly assaulted Deepak Singh, the husband of a BJP candidate, inside a police station in Amethi after the latter allegedly hurled abuses at Singh when he was sitting in protest. Singh had alleged that the BJP workers threatened to kill two of his party colleagues.
Following the incident, Amethi police lodged an FIR against 12, and an unidentified person, on a complaint by Deepak Singh, including the MLA, two of his brothers and nephew Arunendra Pratap Singh under IPC Sections 147 (rioting), 352 (punishment for assault or criminal force), 336 (act endangering life or personal safety of others), and 506 (criminal intimidation), among others. Deepak Singh too has multiple cases registered against him.
Further, both Manoj Pandey and Rakesh Pratap Singh had led a battery of Upper Caste leaders affiliated with the SP who had been critical of the party’s former general secretary Swami Prasad Maurya, who quit the party to float his own political outfit, over his controversial statements about Hindu scriptures and deities.
On the other hand, Amethi MLA Maharaji Prajapati’s husband Gayatri Prajapati, a junior minister in the Akhilesh Yadav government (2012-17), is facing an Enforcement Directorate (ED) probe. Having filed a chargesheet against him under the PMLA Act, the agency seized 57 bank accounts and properties worth Rs 55 crore belonging to Gayatri Prajapati.
In 2021, Gayatri was convicted of rape and criminal conspiracy by the Allahabad High Court and sentenced to five years in jail.
The ED has also alleged that though documents show Maharaji Prajapati was earning Rs 10,000-15,000 through “stitching clothes”, she had by 2013 become the owner of a lavish house in Mumbai’s Lonavala.
‘BJP should form group called BJP siddhantheen’: Akhilesh
Amid speculation that Unchahar MLA Manoj Pandey may contest from Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat on a BJP ticket, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav remarked that “there were promises that may remain unfulfilled”.
Interacting with media persons in Lucknow Wednesday, Yadav said the BJP, fearing the expansion of the PDA (picchde, dalit, alpsankhyak) family, is trying to “break (rival) parties”.
In response to a query from ThePrint about the possibility of Pandey contesting from Rae Bareli on a BJP ticket, he said: “The one who used to sit behind me, would help us with information of what was happening in the BJP and the RSS. My concern is who will pass on that information now? As of now, the wait is about what package they will get.”
“The PDA family will continue to expand, this is why the BJP is desperate and has to break parties. And the BJP should form a separate group called BJP siddhantheen (BJP without principles),” he commented.
Asked if he had no information about the possibility of cross-voting in the Rajya Sabha polls, the former chief minister said journalists should ask the BJP this question and not him.
“You should not ask me this question but ask the BJP what they are learning from Maryada Purushottam Ram; you will be made a minister, you may be given something bigger….just now one journalist mentioned that someone may be given a Lok Sabha seat, so these are just promises which are yet to be fulfilled. And if promises remain unfulfilled, then will the BJP be able to stop them,” he said in response to the question.
Congress preparing ground in Amethi, Rae Bareli
Meanwhile, Congress leaders in Amethi and Rae Bareli admitted that they are preparing the ground for the Gandhi siblings to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Amethi and Rae Bareli seats. They, however, claim to be unaffected by the cross-voting by Samajwadi Party MLAs.
“Rahul ji’s candidature from Amethi is almost confirmed and our work on the ground started long back. Voters’ lists are being scrutinised and those voters, whose names have been cut out, have been added. No booth should remain empty,” said a Congress leader from the Amethi unit.
Asked about SP MLA Maharaji Prajapati’s abstention, the leader remarked: “those helping the BJP may want to come out of jail.”
Pankaj Tiwari, Congress’s Rae Bareli district president, said the party had started preparing for Priyanka’s candidature from the seat soon after Sonia Gandhi wrote a letter to the people of Amethi saying the Gandhi family will continue to serve the people of the constituency.
“Sonia ji has gone to the Rajya Sabha but she considers Rae Bareli as her family which is why she issued a letter saying that their services in Rae Bareli will continue. We knew that another Gandhi family member will come this time and whatever is happening is good. The public of Rae Bareli considers the Gandhi family as their own family and the public will support any one from the family. People are afraid of the ED and CBI which is why they are running but Congress workers won’t,” said Tiwari.
Dismissing the possibility of Manoj Pandey’s likely candidature from Rae Bareli as a threat to the Congress, Tiwari said Pandey does not wield any influence outside of Unchahar. “He fielded his candidate in nagar palika (urban local body) elections (last May). The candidate lost his deposit and the Congress candidate won with a margin of over 17,000 votes,” he said.
Asked if Pandey will contest from the Rae Bareli seat, UP BJP spokesperson Manish Shukla told ThePrint that it was up to the party’s parliamentary board to decide. Sonia Gandhi has conceded defeat by deciding to go to Rajya Sabha rather than contesting from the seat, he said.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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