Mamata Banerjee, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Sharad Pawar, Nitish Kumar and Ram Vilas Paswan. Their parties are contesting elections in Uttar Pradesh and claiming to play a key role in government formation but their presence in the campaign has either been minimal or simply non-existent.
The Trinamul Congress which so pompously announced its presence in Uttar Pradesh and insisted that its alliance with the Congress did not exist beyond the Lok Sabha has failed to get West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to campaign even for a day.
The Trinamul is contesting 160 seats and most of its candidates include spill-overs from the Congress. Some TMC candidates like Suraiya Siddiqui, who is contesting the Lucknow Cantt seat, did manage to get stars like Padmini Kolhapure and Poonam Dhillon to campaign for them but that is about all.
TMC state coordinator S P Singh has been insisting that Ms Mamata Banerjee’s programme was being finalised and she would campaign in UP but five phases of polls are over and there is no sign of Ms Banerjee.
Similarly, the Nationalist Congress Party is also contesting 115 seats in Uttar Pradesh polls but Mr Sharad Pawar has stayed away from the campaign. Even other NCP leaders like Mr Praful Patel and Ms Supriya Sule have not paid a visit to UP during the on-going campaign.
A local NCP leader says that the party high command was busy with the civic polls in Mumbai and hence could not find time to campaign in UP.
Rashtriya Janata Dal leader, Lalu Prasad Yadav, has also not bothered to campaign in UP and his party is putting up a ‘symbolic fight’ on less than half a dozen seats.
“We are not contesting the elections in a full-fledged manner and our presence is merely symbolic. Lalu ji would have come had we been contesting the polls in a big way,” says RJD state president, Ashok Singh.
The Janata Dal (U) is contesting over 300 seats in UP and it is the party president Sharad Yadav alone who is campaigning for his candidates. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, considered to be the party’s star campaigners has not gone beyond campaigning on a few seats in eastern Uttar Pradesh.