The ruling Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party are facing the threat of internal sabotage, thanks to frequent changes in their candidate lists.
Party leaders of both parties, whose candidature was cancelled after they had spent considerable time and money in campaigning, are now silently working against the official candidates.
The BSP had cancelled the tickets of 110 of its sitting MLAs after assuring them that they would be re-nominated as party candidates.
“In April last year, Ms Mayawati had told us in a meeting that all sitting MLAs would get tickets and she even asked us to start campaigning. Almost all of us started campaigning and after eight months, she suddenly announced another candidate in my constituency without even bothering to inform me. Most of the legislators have been treated similarly and there very few have been lucky in getting a ticket from another party. My supporters and I are now sitting at home and will certainly not support the official BSP candidate,” confessed a sitting BSP MLA who was denied ticket.
According to party sources, almost all the legislators who have been denied tickets are either contesting against the BSP or are opposing it in their constituencies.
The BSP has also changed the constituencies of 83 of its sitting MLAs who are now being confronted by those who had earlier laid claim to the constituency. “I was asked by the party nurse the Katehri Assembly segments about a year ago. I worked relentlessly in the constituency and suddenly I was told that BSP minister Lalji Varma was being shifted here. It almost seemed that my harvest was being reaped by another,” said a BSP leader from Katehri.
The situation is worse in the Samajwadi Party where candidates have been changed, on an average, three times on one constituency.
In Lambhua, for instance, the Samajwadi Party changed candidates eight times in two months. Candidates in about 69 constituencies have been changed more than once.
A senior Samajwadi Party leader admits, “This is a major problem that we are facing and though we have been trying to pacify the dissidents, we have not succeeded in all the cases.”