Battle for UP: Farmers' stir will not dent BJP's prospects, says party leader
Darpan News Desk IANS, 17 Jan, 2022 12:12 PM
New Delhi, Jan 17 (IANS) The farmers' agitation against the three contentious farm laws, which were later revoked, will not impact BJP's victory in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections as the peasants of western part of the state will vote in favour of the party, a veteran BJP leader said.
Talking to IANS, he said: "The story of BJP's victory in Uttar Pradesh will start from the first phase on February 10, and will continue till the seventh and final phase."
In the first phase on February 10, polling will be held for a total of 58 seats and in the second phase for 55 seats on February 14. The Braj region is said to be the stronghold of farmers. National spokesperson of Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) Rakesh Tikait also hails from this region and it is being believed that the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) alliance has also weakened the chances of BJP's win.
However, contrary to the claims of SP president Akhilesh Yadav and RLD chief Jayant Choudhary, the BJP veteran claimed that the farmers' agitation will have no effect in the first two phases of elections and the party will win equal or more seats than it did in 2017.
In the first two phases, a total of 113 seats will be up for grabs. Of this, the BJP has announced its candidature in 105 seats and will declare the candidates for the remaining 8 seats soon.
Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, a skilled election strategist of the BJP, will be in Uttar Pradesh again from January 23. It is being said that Shah has plans to tour the entire state, including the west and the Braj region, to woo the farmers back.
As part of the election campaign, Shah is also likely to meet leaders of the Jat community in the western part of the state. Moreover, the party is also expecting a huge public support in Braj on the issue of Mathura.
India on Tuesday recorded 1,68,063 new Covid cases, taking the total tally to 8,21,446. Although the fresh infections were 6.4 per cent less than Monday when the country logged 1,79,723, the weekly positivity rate has climbed to 8.85 per cent and the daily positivity rate has declined to 10.64 per cent. On the other hand, 4,461 Omicron cases were recorded from 28 states.
Delhi reported a 25 per cent surge in Covid-19 cases after recording 19,166 fresh cases. With this, the infection tally has climbed to 15,68,896. Meanwhile, the city has recorded 17 Covid deaths on the second consecutive day, pushing the death toll to 25,177.
On Monday, after a detailed hearing in the matter, a bench, headed by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana and comprising Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli, said the court will set up a committee headed by a retired top court judge to probe the PM's security breach and asked both the Centre and Punjab government to not move ahead with their respective inquiries into the matter.
Several Supreme Court advocates on Monday claimed to have received an international call with a recorded message asking the apex court not to help the Central government by taking up a case connected with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's security breach in Punjab last week.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Congress are projected to poll 40 per cent and 36 per cent votes in Punjab, respectively, as per the ABP-CVOTER Battle for the States survey. The 117-member Punjab Assembly will go to the polls on February 14, and the counting of votes will be taken up on March 10.
The highest quantity has been procured from Punjab (1,86,85,53 MT) followed by Chhattisgarh (67,65,986 MT) and Telangana (65,54,739 MT) while the highest number of farmers benefitted in are Chhattisgarh (16,90,459), Telangana (9,67,134) and Punjab (9,24,299).
