The united opposition’s candidate received a significant boost in Uttar Pradesh’s Kairana after a key candidate withdrew from the contest just days before the crucial Lok Sabha bypolls.
The Rashtriya Lok Dal has fielded Tabassum Hasan as the joint opposition nominee to take on ruling BJP’s Mriganka Singh in the Kairana Lok Sabha bypoll, scheduled for 28 May. The Lok Dal candidate Kanwar Hasan on Thursday pulled out of the contest to join the RLD.
Confirming the development, UP RLD chief Masood Ahmad today told PTI, “Lok Dal candidate Kanwar Hasan today joined the Rashtriya Lok Dal at a meeting held in Kairana in the presence of Jayant Chaudhary, the national vice-president of RLD.”
Ahmad said that the joint opposition candidate Tabassum Hasan will sweep the bypoll. He said, “Now, there is no contest left in the bye-election. We are going to win with a huge margin which will be in the range of 3-4 lakh votes.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is campaigning in the area to ensure that there was no repeat of Gorakhpur and Phulpur where the BJP lost to the Samajwadi Party in lok Sabha by-elections.
There are more than five lakh Muslims in the constituency. Hasan pulling out of the fray has given a big sigh of relief to senior RLD leaders, who said that ‘the possibility of split in Muslim votes will not happen.” “The process of forming a coalition (against the BJP) has started and soon, a grand alliance will be formed, the UP RLD chief said.
Today’s development comes just a day after prominent opposition parties gathered on one platform in Bengaluru to display their show of strength ahead of the next year’s Lok Sabha polls. Meanwhile, veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Thursday said that the BJP was like a sinking ship.
The election in Kairana parliamentary constituency was necessitated by the death of the BJP MP Hukum Singh. The constituency consists of five assembly segments — Shamli, Thanabhawan, Kairana (all in Shamli district) and Gangoh and Nakur (Saharanpur district). Tabassum is being backed by the Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Congress and Nishad Party.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJPs Hukum Singh had bagged 5,65,909 votes as he defeated Nahid Hasan of the SP who got 3,29,081 votes.
In the two key bypolls for Gorakhpur and Phulpur, held earlier this year, the BJP had to face humiliating defeats in its bastions. The counting for Kairana bypolls will take place on 31 May. The results here will also indicate of the unity in opposition parties was capable of stopping the BJP from repeating its 2004 performance.
