Polls: BJP picks Maya crumbs

Unable to strike an honourable deal with alliance-partner BSP in the UP by-elections, the BJP has settled for a consolation prize — a R...

Unable to strike an honourable deal with alliance-partner BSP in the UP by-elections, the BJP has settled for a consolation prize — a Rajya Sabha seat for six months — and an Assembly seat that it is unlikely to win.

The BSP would contest the remaining three seats — Akbarpur (Lok Sabha), Jahangirganj and Baheri (Assembly). The first two had been vacated by Chief Minister Mayawati and her party lost the third to the SP.

The BJP has got the Dibai seat for the current by-elections. A stronghold of Rashtriya Kranti Party leader Kalyan Singh who had won it by a huge margin of about 27,000 votes from a BSP rival, Mayawati could not have bagged it anyway. If this helps the BJP save face, Mayawati anyway didn’t have anything to lose by acting magnanimous.

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For the Rajya Sabha seat, the BJP election committee that met at the Prime Minister’s residence yesterday decided to nominate party general secretary Sunil Shastri. The seat fell vacant after SP’s Mohammad Azam Khan’s election to the UP Assembly from the Rampur.

The BJP hopes that Mayawati may let the party hold on to the Rajya Sabha seat in biennial elections after Shastri’s short term expires.