National
Many BJP MLAs may not be fielded in U.P.
By Neena Vyas
NEW DELHI, JAN 3. The Uttar Pradesh BJP State election committee would be meeting in Lucknow on January 7 and 8 to finalise its recommendations for the list of party candidates. Already several important party leaders have begun to indicate that a good percentage of sitting MLAs would be on the chopping block.
The reason for systematic weeding out could be as varied as lack of moral character, criminal links, suspicion of corruption or simply indifferent performance on the part of the MLAs.
A senior party leader and one of the key campaigners in the party today indicated that the leadership would be well-advised to drop half the sitting MLAs and present the electorate with ``fresh faces''. Another leader, who is in charge of elections, hinted that a third of the sitting MLAs could be changed for various reasons, including that of `wrong' caste configuration.
Some in the party are beginning to talk about giving at least one woman from every district in the State a ticket to indicate the party's commitment to give women more representation. However, it is being admitted that this would be nearly impossible to achieve.
Although the party's central office here is yet to fix a date for the meeting of the central election committee which would finalise the list of candidates on the basis of recommendations of the state committees, it seems that this could meet in mid-January after the return of Union Home Minister, L.K. Advani, from a proposed visit to the U.S.
The U.P. Chief Minister, Rajnath Singh, had tried to win over the most backward castes and the most oppressed castes among the Dalits through his quota-within-a-quota reservation policy (but the State Government has committed itself in the Supreme Court not to implement it). The party will have to prove its credentials on that account by giving more tickets to the most backwards and the most oppressed castes.
And above all, it would also have to arrive at a fine balance between the Thakurs (represented by the Chief Minister) and the Brahmins (led by the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the State party president, Kalraj Mishra) while allocating seats to the upper castes.
The party leadership has already stated that it would be accommodating its alliance partners, the Samata Party, the Janata Dal (United) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal. Besides, it would have to leave seats for its partners in the Uttar Pradesh Government. As yet, the process of identifying those seats has not yet begun.
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