Kairana bypoll: RLD to field 'united oppn' candidate against BJP

Buoyed by the Opposition's grand success in Gorakhpur and Phulpur, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) today said it would contest the May 28 Kairana Lok Sabha bypoll with the "full support" of like-minded, non-BJP parties.

"We have decided to field Tabassum Begum from Kairana parliamentary constituency," Uttar Pradesh RLD chief Masood Ahmad told PTI.

"We expect the full support of like-minded, non-BJP parties, especially the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), besides the Congress. Tabassum Begum has joined the RLD today and hopefully, she will emerge as the joint opposition candidate," he said.

A former BSP MP from Kairana, Tabassum (47), who had later joined the SP, is a popular face in the Jat-dominated constituency in western Uttar Pradesh, around 100 kms from New Delhi.

The Kairana Lok Sabha seat has around 17 lakh voters, including three lakh Muslims, four lakh backward castes (Jat, Gujjar, Saini, Kashyap, Prajapati and others) and about 1.5 lakh Dalits.

Exuding confidence that the Ajit Singh-led party will win the crucial bypoll, Ahmad said, "The process of forming a coalition (against the BJP) has started and soon, there will be a mahagathbandhan (grand alliance)."
Commenting on the development, state BJP general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak, who is in charge of the party affairs in western Uttar Pradesh, said, "The confusion arising out of such political manipulations will lead to the opposition's defeat and the BJP will emerge victorious with the people's support."
Indicating that the Congress might extend its full support to Tabassum, he said, "Our party is exploring all the possibilities to ensure that the opposition votes are not frittered away."