LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday alleged that the BJP deliberately lost the recent assembly bypolls in Bihar’s Bankipur and Madhya Pradesh’s Datia to create the impression that elections could not be questioned and to blunt the opposition’s criticism of the electoral process.Addressing a Brahmin Sammelan organised at the SP’s state headquarters on the birth anniversary of veteran socialist leader Janeshwar Mishra, Yadav claimed the ruling party had intentionally avoided using the “model” it allegedly adopted during elections in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.“The BJP deliberately lost these bypolls because it wanted to check whether elections could be won without dishonesty. It did not adopt in Bankipur and Datia the model that it had adopted in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. The BJP has lost these byelections only to mislead the people,” Yadav alleged.Claiming that the BJP wanted to weaken the opposition’s criticism of the electoral process, he said, “Now they will say that opposition parties will no longer raise questions about EVMs. They have deliberately lost these bypolls to deceive the public.”Taking a swipe at the BJP over its defeat in the Bankipur bypoll, Yadav claimed that leaders of the ruling party were themselves celebrating the loss.“After losing the Bankipur election, BJP leaders themselves are distributing sweets among their own colleagues. Just wait, by the time elections come, all those sitting in the Uttar Pradesh government will be roaming around with boxes of sweets asking someone to accept them. But Samajwadi Party workers will not take even one of them into our fold,” he said.In an apparent message to former SP leaders, including Manoj Kumar Pandey, who have since joined the BJP and are ministers in the Yogi Adityanath government, Yadav said the party would replace them with committed workers.“Those who have left us are free to go. It is we who will fill the space they have vacated,” he said.The remarks come days after Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor won the high-profile Bankipur assembly bypoll in Bihar, while the BJP also lost the Datia assembly bypoll in Madhya Pradesh to Congress candidate Ghanshyam Singh.The Bankipur contest, necessitated after BJP president Nitin Nabin vacated the seat, was widely seen as a prestige battle for the ruling party.(With PTI inputs)
