Mayawati to start campaigning in Haryana, Maharashtra next week

BSP chief Mayawati will start a tour of poll-bound Maharashtra and Haryana next week.

BSP chief Mayawati will start a tour of poll-bound Maharashtra and Haryana next week. Her party is contesting all the assembly seats in the elections to be held on October 15 for 288-member Maharashtra assembly and 90-member Haryana assembly.

While BSP has no MLA in Maharashtra, it won a single seat — Jagdhari in Yamuna Nagar district — in Haryana in 2009 assembly polls. In a departure from its earlier practice, the BSP has for the first time announced former MP Arvind Sharma, a Brahmin, as party’s chief ministerial candidate in Haryana. This time party has also deployed only a few leaders from Uttar Pradesh to manage these polls with most responsibilities being shouldered by local leaders.

Sources in the party said Mayawati is expected to start her campaign with a rally in Nagpur on October 7. She will also hold rallies in Bhandara, Jalna, Nanded, Thane, Solapur, Nashik and Pune.

In Maharashtra, the BSP leaders hope to perform better this time with multi-cornered contests after the breaking of alliances between Congress and NCP, and Shiv Sena and BJP. Rajya Sabha member and In-charge of Maharashtra Veer Singh told The Indian Express: “We will definitely be in a better position after the split in these alliances. Our party is specially strong in Vidarbha region and this time we hope to win at least 20-25 seats.”

Besides Singh, BSP general secretary Satish Chandra Misra is the only other leader from UP, whose name figures in the list of party’s star campaigners in Maharashtra.

By announcing the name of Brahmin as party’s CM candidate, the BSP hopes to attract non-Jat voters.

Haryana BSP president Naresh Saran said the party will do better than earlier. “We have named a Brahmin as CM for the first time. Dalits and upper castes are in favour of the party, so we will definitely improve our performance.”

First uploaded on: 01-10-2014 at 12:48 IST

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