(From L to R) SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav with SP leader & Ayodhya MP Awadhesh Prasad; Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath
Credit: PTI Images
Still smarting from the loss of Faizabad Lok Sabha seat in Ayodhya district in last year's Parliamentary elections, the forthcoming by-poll in Milkipur assembly constituency, which is part of the Faizabad LS seat, has become a prestige battle for BJP and the saffron party plans to go all out to wrest it from arch rival Samajwadi Party (SP).
On the other hand, the SP, which had gone to the town after its candidate Awadhesh Kumar defeated the BJP nominee Lalloo Singh from Faizabad (Ayodhya) seat by over 50 thousand votes in LS polls terming the win as the victory of ‘’secularism over communal politics," was equally determined not to lose the Milkipur seat and allow the BJP to claim that its victory was a fluke.
The by-poll was necessitated after Awadhesh Prasad, a senior Dalit leader in the SP, resigned the Milkipur seat after being elected to Lok Sabha. His son is now the SP nominee from there.
The fact that chief minister Yogi Adityanath visited Ayodhya over a dozen times in the past few months and deployed senior ministers to camp there underscores the significance he attaches to the Milkipur seat.
‘’A win in Milkipur will send a positive message in the country ... .it will, to some extent compensate for the defeat in Faizabad,’’ said a senior BJP leader while speaking to DH here.
Buoyed after its resounding victory in the recently held by-polls on nine assembly seats in UP of which it won as many as seven, the BJP was confident of a win in the Milkipur by-poll also.
Faizabad MP Awadhesh Prasad, however, said that the SP would retain the seat and that the BJP would once again taste defeat there. ‘’The chief minister may visit Milkipur hundreds of times but the people will not support his party,’’ Prasad said.
With the BSP deciding to opt out of the contest and the Congress not likely to field its candidate in view of its alliance with the SP as both were part of the I.N.D.I.A. alliance, there would be a direct contest between the SP and the BJP at Milkipur.