BSP pins hopes on OBCs, minorities

Amarjot Kaur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 13

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) UT State president Waryam Singh today confirmed that the party is gearing up for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. It is in the process of fielding a new candidate from the Chandigarh constituency.

He said the party had received three applications but did not reveal the identity of the applicants as the party supremo was yet to shortlist the candidates and they are expecting more people to apply in the coming days.

“I can only tell you that three people have applied so far. All of them are men aged above 40, but below 60. For now, the applications have been forwarded to the party supremo, who will shortlist the candidate. However, it’s too early to say. We are hoping to receive more applications,” he said.

Though BSP supremo Mayawati said her party would have no alliance with the Congress in any state for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Singh shared he doesn’t want to give away the party’s political strategy just yet. The high-octane electoral battle in 2014 had two Bollywood actors, BJP’s Kirron Kher and Aam Aadmi Party’s Gul Panag, and Congress’ four-time MP Pawan Kumar Bansal in the fray while BSP had fielded municipal councillor Jannat Jahan who bagged 15,934 votes (3.51 per cent of the total votes).

“We are looking for applicants who have carved a certain identity in their community and have done relevant social work to fit the criteria of a leader,” said Singh.

As per Census 2011, it was reported that 18.86 per cent of Chandigarh’s total population belongs to the Scheduled Castes. While 17.16 per cent constituted the rural population of SCs, their urban population was pegged at 18.91 per cent. No Scheduled Tribes were notified in Chandigarh.

“According to the data that we have, there are more than 1,30,000 Balmikis and 80,000 Ramdasis in Chandigarh. We will be targeting all the Other Backward Castes those who support minorities,” said Singh.

The Election Commission of India on its website states that the last date for filing nominations for the Chandigarh and Punjab constituencies is April 29.