NEWSLINKS
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTION 99
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Acid test for Gupta, Kalyan and Mulayam

The February 17 by-election to the Kannauj Lok Sabha constituency and eight assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh would be an acid test not only for the Ram Prakash Gupta government but also for Rashtriya Kranti Dal leader Kalyan Singh and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Gupta, being dubbed as a weak chief minister, may use the opportunity to prove his leadership acumen while expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Kalyan Singh has a chance to show his political strength in the state. The Ram Prakash Gupta government has a slender majority of eight seats in the assembly.

This would be the first test after Singh had floated his new party amid his claims to destroy the BJP.

The by-election to the Kannauj Lok Sabha seat has been necessitated following the resignation of Mulayam who has retained the Sambhal seat. The eight assembly seats are Pilibhit, Shahabad (Rampur), Thanbahwan (Muzaffarnagar), Patiali (Etah), Pratapgarh, Unnao, Gauri Bazaar (Deoria) and Nakud (Saharanpur).

As soon as the schedule for the by-election was announced all the political parties started chalking out their strategies. The BJP state executive meeting, which concluded in Lucknow yesterday, also deliberated on it.

State BJP president Om Prakash Singh, however, said the party is yet to decide on seat-sharing with its allies.

In the last Lok Sabha election, the ruling party had left the Kannauj seat for the Loktantrik Congress, which it lost to the Samajwadi Party by about 80,000 votes.

The Samajwadi Party had emerged victorious in the Shahabad, Thanbahwan, Patiali, Pratapgarh and Unnao seats in the last assembly elections held in 1996.

The Shahabad assembly seat has fallen vacant following death of Samajwadi Party member Swami Parmanand Dandi while the Thanbahwan, Pratapgarh and Unnao seats had fallen vacant following the resignations of Amir Alam Khan, Chandranath Singh and Deepak Kumar who were elected to the Lok Sabha from Etah, Machlishahar and Unnao respectively.

Khan was elected on a Rashtriya Lokdal ticket while remaining two were elected on Samajwadi Party tickets.

The Pilibhit assembly seat has fallen vacant following the resignation of Raj Rai Singh who was a minister in the Kalyan Singh ministry. He resigned from the BJP to contest the Pilibhit Lok Sabha seat on a Congress ticket against Maneka Gandhi, an independent backed by the BJP.

The by-election to the Gauri Bazaar assembly seat was necessitated following the death of BJP member Sriniwas Tripathi. The Nakud seat had fallen vacant after the death of BJP's Master Kanwarpal Singh.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report