BJP confident of winning Rampur Lok Sabha By-Poll

Rampur, Jun 20: Deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya on Sunday described the opposition Samajwadi Party as “doobta hua jahaaz (sinking ship).”

 

 

 

Unlike 2019, when the Samajwadi Party (SP) benefitted from a tie-up with the BSP in Rampur, this time, the results would be different in the bypoll as there was no pact, he said. The Rampur Lok Sabha by-poll is scheduled for June 23.

 

 

 

“Our candidate Dr. Naipal Singh had won the 2014 Lok Sabha poll from Rampur. Did you make any mistake then by supporting Prime Minister Narendra Modi? In 2019, the SP benefitted from a tie-up with the BSP, but now with no alliance in place, the SP won’t stand a chance in Rampur,” Keshav Maurya said while campaigning for the party candidate Ghanshyam Lodhi. The Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress have opted out of the Rampur Lok Sabha bypoll, making it a bipolar SP vs BJP contest there. “We are winning both the bypolls, in Azamgarh as well as in Rampur. These two seats will add to our numbers. Remember, these two seats won’t make any difference to our government, which won’t be impacted by the results. But, then, only a BJP MP from Rampur would be able to get you benefits of big-ticket schemes of the Narendra Modi government,” he said. The 2022 bypoll wins will also set the stage for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, he said. Rampur is an SP citadel. The June 23 Lok Sabha by-poll was necessitated after SP veteran Azam Khan resigned as the local MP and opted for the assembly after winning his traditional Rampur assembly seat in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh polls. The SP has fielded Azam Khan loyalist Asim Raza who is up against Ghanshyam Lodhi, Khan’s former aide. “Do you want to send such an MP who spends the rest of his tenure in jail?” Maurya said, in an apparent reference to Khan who recently got bail after nearly 27 months in jail.

 

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Khan has been regularly talking about how the BJP framed him in various cases. “If you choose an MP from SP, would that person be able to bring even a single rupee from the Centre for Rampur’s development? Such people don’t even spend their MP fund,” Keshav Prasad Maurya said. Maurya recalled how PM Modi had taken up the broom to launch the cleanliness mission and how during the Prayagraj Kumbh, the PM washed the feet of sanitation workers.