Thursday, Mar 20, 2014
Kolkata: In its bid to maintain an equidistant from both the Congress party and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Trinamool Congress (TMC) has fielded candidates against the bigwigs of both the national parties.
In Uttar Pradesh, the party has fielded Umesh Mishra from the Rae Bareli constituency, who will be taking on Sonia Gandhi, the Congress party president. In Kanpur, it is Anil Awasthi against BJP’s Murlimanohar Joshi, while in Azamgarh, Madanmohan Mishra will be contesting Swamajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.
In Lucknow, the Trinamool candidate is Mohammad Sarvar Malik, who will take on BJP president Rajnath Singh, while in Pilbhit, Dr Sitaram Rajput will fight on behalf of Trinamool Congress. In Sitapur, Jagadish Narayan Shukla will be fighting for the TMC.
“Our fight is against both corruption and communalism and for the development and unity of India,” said TMC general secretary Mukul Roy.
Though off-record TMC leaders agree that these are symbolic contest, it hopes that this symbolism will help the party win large number of seats in the state.
“In politics symbolism is equally important and it must be done judicially,” said a TMC leader unwilling to be named.
“There is apprehension fuelled by our opponents that we may support BJP post elections. This should clear the air. Also it’s not worthwhile to ally with the Congress party as the whole nation is against its policies in the last 10 years,” he added.
Though TMC maintains that it is confident of forming ‘federal front’ post election results on May 16, the candidate against Yadav, tells a different story.
“There is no prepoll alliance with Samajwadi Party. They have also fielded candidatures in Bengal. It is within our rights to contest elections,” said another leader.
However, many believe that since Mulayam is yet to officially call of his engagement with the ‘third front’, TMC has fielded candidate believing that he could be their prime ministerial candidate in the event of a fractured mandate.
By Archisman Dinda, Correspondent
Gulf News 2014. All rights reserved.
