Shivpal to focus on SP strongholds for LS polls

Shivpal Singh Yadav has hinted that his outfit 'Samajwadi Secular Morcha' will be targeting the 'Yadav' belt in Central Uttar Pradesh region, a Samajwadi Party (SP) stronghold, in the next Lok Sabha elections.

With this, the former SP general secretary has ruling out a possibility of a compromise with his nephew Akhiles Yadav.

According to sources close to Shivpal, who has declared that he will put up his candidates in all 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state, the rebel leader is trying to rope in disgruntled SP leaders and offering them party nominations.

Shivpal was also in touch with some smaller caste-based outfit to strike electoral alliances, sources added.

They said that Shivpal himself planned to contest from Farrukhabad Lok Sabha seat, which the SP had won several times before losing it in 2014 to the BJP.

''Our focus will be on Mainpuri, Etawah, Kannauj, Ferozabad and a few other nearby seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls,'' said a Morcha leader, close to Shivpal.

While SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav had won from Mainpuri in 2014, Akhilesh's wife Dimple Yadav had managed to successfully counter the Modi wave in Kannauj.

He said that Shivpal had been active in all these Lok Sabha constituencies for a long time.

''Many senior SP leaders in these areas owe their rise to Shivpal,'' the leader remarked.

While the SP leaders refused to attach much importance to Shivpal's Morcha, BJP leaders said that the rebel SP leader might ''dent'' the support bank of his old party benefiting them.

''We will certainly stand to gain if Shivpal's Morcha puts up its nominees in Kannauj and other nearby seats,'' said a senior BJP leader in Kannauj district, about 150 kilometre from Lucknow.