The poll watch dog needs to give its verdict latest by Monday as political parties will begin the process of filing nominations for the first phase of elections for 73 assembly constituencies in western Uttar Pradesh from Tuesday, January 17
With just a day to go to start the process for filing nomination for the first phase of Uttar Pradesh elections, all eyes are on the Election Commission (EC) that has to decide the fate of Samajwadi Party's (SP) symbol–bicycle.
The poll watch dog needs to give its verdict latest by Monday as political parties will begin the process of filing nominations for the first phase of elections for 73 assembly constituencies in western Uttar Pradesh from Tuesday, January 17. The last date of making nominations for the first phase is January 24.
SP insiders claim that its a win-win situation for Akhilesh as the prolonged family feud has already helped incumbent Chief Minister garner a lot of sympathy among all sections of the society for acting tough against musclemen and corrupt politicians having the clout of Amar Singh and uncle Shivpal Yadav and any decision by the EC will help him gather more mileage.
"If the EC decides to give the bicycle symbol to Akhilesh it will only add to his stature of righteousness and in case it does not then it will help him gain even more sympathy. On both counts Akhilesh will only gain though we believe that legally EC should give the symbol to Akhilesh," said a SP leader hailing from Aligarh.
Moreover, what has worked in Akhilesh's favour is that because of the internal tussle the whole politics of Uttar Pradesh has revolved around him only, not allowing other political parties to bring any other discourse in limelight.
"Barring demonetization that we believe will go against BJP, Akhilesh has remained in the centre stage of UP politics. The issue of his fight virtually hogged all the space of election discourse in UP, giving a sense to the people that he is being wronged by evil forces. This has worked to his advantage," conceded a close supporter from Etawa, who remained with Mulayam Singh during his stay in Delhi.
On being asked if all this drama is Mulayam's ploy to establish his son's image and in the process get rid of the dead weight, the supporter smiled and said only Netaji can answer this but one this is true that no one can take the place of a son.
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