Lucknow: Senior minister Azam Khan's wife Tazeen Fatima was a surprising inclusion to the Samajwadi Party's list of nominees for the upper house. Among the remaining five, there are four former Lok Sabha MPs who lost this time and national general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav, whose RS terms expires this month. By evening, however, Fatima said that SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav should select a more competent person than her.
The parliamentary board of the party met on Friday to decide the names after which Ram Gopal released the list to the media, setting wild speculations about the candidates to the rest. Apart from Ram Gopal and Fatima, other candidates are Ravi Prakash Verma (Kheri), Neeraj Shekhar (Ballia), Javed Ali Khan (Sambhal) and Chandrapal Singh (Jhansi). Given SP's strength in assembly all are certain to win.
In a small twist in the tale later, Fatima, while profusely thanking the SP chief for his 'generosity', said that she would be happy if "someone more deserving" was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in her place. Though both Fatima and Azam Khan remained unavailable for comment, Khan's office said Fatima, a former professor of political science at Badaun University, had written to SP chief Yadav saying she was grateful for the faith he had placed in her.
She said: "Mere sthan par yadi koi haqdar chhoot raha hai to use mauka dene ki kripa karein. Mujhe tatha mere pariwar ko netaji ka nirnay saharsh qabool hoga." (If there is a more deserving candidate who has been overlooked in my favour, (s)he may be nominated in my place. However, Netaji's final decision is this regard will be acceptable to my family and me.)
Political observers saw Fatima's announcement as an effort by the Rampur family to distance itself from accusation of furthering dynastic politics. By taking the high moral ground against her nomination and appearing to turn down the offer, Fatima sent out the message that she was opposed to dynastic politics. However, by leaving the final decision in Mulayam's hand, she's also left enough elbow room for her eventual, and nearly certain entry, into the house of elders. Earlier also she turned down an offer to be chairperson of the UP Higher Education Service Commission.
Apart from Fatima's candidature, the SP leadership also decided to send only party loyalists to the upper house. Neeraj Shekhar, the son of former prime minister Chandra Shekhar, who is also Ballia MLA was nominated for the RS. The party also nominated Javed Ali Khan, who contested the Lok Sabha poll from Sambhal and Ravi Prakash Verma, the three-time MP from Kheri who has been losing the seat for the past two times. The other nominee was Chandrapal Yadav, who won from Jhansi in 2004 but lost the seat Pradeep Aditya Jain in 2009 and Uma Bharati in 2014.
SP to contest 50
seats in Jharkhand
The Samajwadi Party parliamentary board decided on Friday to contest a maximum of 50 assembly seats in the upcoming Jharkhand assembly elections. The party also decided against entering into a pre-poll alliance with the Janata Dal (United) to contest the assembly polls. A total of 81 assembly seats in Jharkhand go to polls in November. Senior leaders in the party hinted, however, that relations with the JD(U) remain cordial and that a post-poll alliance cannot be ruled out.
Stay updated on the go with The Times of India’s mobile apps. Click here to download it for your device.
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://ift.tt/jcXqJW.
from Top Stories - Google News http://ift.tt/1u3mst8
via IFTTT
0 comments:
Post a Comment