“Bahujan Samaj Party has strength to decide the winner in the byelection to Huzurabad Assembly seat, which is having over 30,000 Dalit voters. But we are not going to field any candidate in tune with party’s policy not to contest any bypolls,” said BSP State chief R.S. Praveen Kumar on Tuesday.
BSP believes that ruling party would have advantages in byelections. Naturally, candidates of parties in power would win the bypoll, be it an Assembly or Lok Sabha election. Even otherwise, a bypoll result would have little or no serious political consequences.
“Hence, Huzurabad byelection is insignificant and inconsequential for BSP,” said the police officer-turned politician speaking with The Hindu. BSP, having championed the cause of oppressed and suppressed classes, can ensure all Dalit votes would not be cast in favour of a particular candidate.
“Yet, we want to be neutral in this bypoll,” Mr. Praveen Kumar said. In addition to the party’s strength, he claimed that his familiarity with the people of the constituency during his stint as SP of Karimnagar district would help in building public opinion.
“We got nearly 300 militants of left wing extremists from Huzurabad area to surrender and join mainstream of life. Some of them eventually became MPTC and ZPTC members,” the former police officer explained. However, in tune with the party’s stand, it was decided to keep off the byelection.
He made it clear that his immediate task was to strengthen the party from polling booth level to Lok Sabha constituency. With the “tremendous response” the party had been receiving “not only from Dalits but also backward classes,” the former police officer said he would prove his party would be a force to reckon with soon.
The byelection could be important for ruling TRS party in the State and the BJP which is in power at the Centre. With a powerful leader from BC community of Mudiraj quitting and joining hands with BJP, TRS supremo and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhara Rao was surely feeling insecure, the BSP chief said.
“Otherwise why are four ministers and nearly 20 MLAs campaigning in a single Assembly constituency? Only to woo Dalit voters, Dalit Bandhu scheme was launched,” Mr. Praveen Kumar observed. According to him, spending hundreds of crores of rupees in Huzurabad in the name of Dalit Bandhu was a crime against people of Telangana.