Senior BJP leader writes to Amit Shah, advises him to not field candidate against Mulayam

Lucknow, Mar 14: Senior BJP leader and former state minister Ram Sevak has reportedly written a letter to Amit Shah in which he has urged the party chief to not field a candidate against Samajwadi Party veteran Mulayam Singh Yadav who would contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections from Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh.

Sevak wrote that Mulayam Singh Yadav had wished in Parliament that PM Modi may get a second term. He said that Mulayam ought to be respected for that, as per an Amar Ujala report.

It is interesting to note that even the Congress may not field a candidate from Mainpuri. According to reports, Congress has decided not to put up candidates against at least three members of the family, including former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav (in Mainpuri), SP National President and former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav (possibly Azamgarh) and Dimple Yadav (possibly Kannauj).

Mainpuri is set to go for polling on April 23. Mulayam Singh had won from this when he became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh for the first time in 1989.

In 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ally managed to stun the SP by winning 73 out of UP's 80 seats. SP could win just five Lok Sabha seats -- Badaun (Dharmendra Yadav), Firozabad (Akshay Yadav), Kannauj (Dimple Yadav), and Azamgarh and Mainpuri (party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav).

On March 8, The Samajwadi Party released its first list of candidates for Lok Sabha elections 2019. The first name on the list was of party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav who will contest from Mainpuri seat. The Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party are geared up to start the campaign for the first phase of voting on April 11. Joint public rallies of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and BSP supremo Mayawati are on the cards in parts of western Uttar Pradesh. The joint rallies are expected to boost the cadres of both the parties for the upcoming polls.