Chairs Fly as SP, BSP Workers Oppose ‘Parachute’ Candidate from Sitapur Parliamentary Constituency

Lucknow: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) workers on Thursday protested against the party’s decision to field a “parachute” candidate from Sitapur for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

According to information, the party is likely to field Nakul Dubey, a close confidante of BSP General Secretary Satish Chandra Mishra. BSP workers have been urging the party to field a local candidate instead of Dubey, who is considered an outsider.

A parachute candidate is someone who has little or no connection with the area from which he/she is fielded.

The incident took place at a joint meeting of the BSP and the Samajwadi Party (SP) at Muskan Guest House in Sitapur. Dubey and his supporters were in attendance. Workers of both parties, which will contest the elections jointly in Uttar Pradesh, soon raised slogans of “parachute nahi chalega” (parachute will not work) and “parachute vapas jao” (parachute go back). A scuffle soon broke out between both groups as well as Dubey’s supporters, with the brawling members flinging chairs at each other.

BSP workers told reporters that the people of Sitapur would prefer a local candidate. “We appeal to respected ‘behenji’ (Mayawati) and Akhilesh Yadavji to not field any parachute candidate from the seat,” they said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Rajesh Verma had won the Sitapur seat in the 2014 elections, bagging more than four lakh votes. He will contest from a BJP ticket again. Runner-up Kaiser Jahan, formerly a BSP candidate, will fight on a Congress ticket. SP candidate Bharat Tripathi had bagged approximately 1.5 lakh votes last time.

Akhilesh Yadav’s SP and Mayawati’s BSP had forged a pre-poll alliance and as per the division of seats, Sitapur was allocated to the BSP. Dubey, an advocate by profession, was the urban development minister in the BSP regime. He was announced as the in-charge for Sitapur Lok Sabha seat last month.

The constituency, which is home to significant numbers of Muslim and Dalit voters, has been a BSP bastion since 1999. But the BJP in 2014 rode the Modi wave to win the seat.