BJP terms SP family feud a 'fixed match'

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 26

Amid worries of losing its key vote banks, including Jats of western UP, to other parties, the BJP is lambasting the Samajwadi Party over its ongoing internal feud terming it a “fixed match”.

The family feud in the Yadav family is a “fixed match”, aimed at keeping the media and public attention away from “failures” of Akhilesh Yadav, BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma alleged.

Quoting a high court order, which criticised the state government for not taking adequate health measures, Sharma condemned both the ruling Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party for leading the state downhill while the wealth of Yadav clan and Mayawati grew.

Notably, prospects of a “mahagathbandhan” in UP on the lines of Bihar, which may end up consolidating anti-BJP votes and also some of its favourable votebank, has the BJP worried.

Ground reports suggest that the Jats of western UP, who supported the saffron outfit in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in large numbers, are upset with it on various accounts.

While one reason is the “feeling of being dumped after being used”, the farmers are also said to be upset over the recent turn of events in Haryana, a state ruled by “non-Jat Manohar lal Khattar”. 

While one option for them could be a “silently strong” Mayawati, political observers say still a better one could be Jat leader Ajit Singh, who is being wooed fervently by the JD-U in the quest of a “mahagathbandhan” for the forthcoming polls along with other non-BJP entities like the Samajwadi Party and the Congress.

Notably, SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and his brother Shivpal are believed to be “all right” with such an arrangement.

All these developments are happening at a time when the BJP feels its chances there have improved, courtesy the surgical strikes and a new renewed nationalistic approach.

Sharma said if elected to power, the BJP would probe “scams” that occurred under the SP and previous BSP governments and “punish the guilty”. They were not held to account so far as both the regional parties ignored corruption cases involving each other’s governments, he claimed.