BJP will change candidates on 225 seats in Assembly polls, says Akhilesh

Lucknow: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday targeted the Uttar Pradesh govt over the decision to curtail minister Nand Gopal Nandi’s administrative control of the Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA), calling the move “too little too late” and linking it to preparations for the 2027 Assembly elections.Nandi no longer holds charge of UPEIDA after chief minister Yogi Adityanath directed that the authority’s operations be handled directly by the Chief Minister’s Office. Following the order, approvals connected to projects and finances will now be routed through the Infrastructure and Industrial Development Department, instead of the Industrial Development Department headed by Nandi.Addressing the development, Yadav said the action was belated and politically motivated. “Today he has been cut to size and when he will be denied a ticket for 2027 Assembly polls, he will not be seen anywhere,” Yadav said, referring to Nandi, who is the MLA from Allahabad South.He alleged that taking away powers after key expressway works were completed served no purpose. “What is the point of stripping him of the powers after construction of poor-quality expressways have been completed and hush money targets have been met,” he said.Yadav claimed there was growing discussion within political circles that the BJP was preparing to change candidates on a large scale to manage anti-incumbency and public anger over alleged corruption. He said the buzz was that the party was ready to replace faces on all Assembly seats in Prayagraj, including Nandi’s, because BJP leaders believed local representatives were focused on making money, contributing to the party’s defeat in the Allahabad Lok Sabha seat in the 2024 general election.Extending the argument statewide, the SP chief said the BJP was considering applying the same approach across constituencies where it suffered setbacks in 2024. He said the party intended to replicate the strategy on all 43 Lok Sabha seats it lost to the INDIA bloc and on an additional nine to 10 parliamentary constituencies where it “managed to manipulate the victory certificates.” On that basis, Yadav claimed candidate replacements could occur on around 225 Assembly seats ahead of 2027.Yadav also asserted that many sitting BJP legislators were not keen to contest the nextAssembly election, as they can sense theirdefeat before SP’s PDA plank that constitutes Pichrde (Backward Classes), Dalits and Alpsankhyaks (Minorities).“BJP now has less than one-fourth of the total voters that it once had. This is the reason the MLAs don’t want to spend their money on an election which is beyond the striking distance for them,” he said.He further claimed that BJP MLAs had begun acknowledging public dissatisfaction with the state govt’s policies and suggested this had affected their willingness to prepare for the polls. “They know that defeat was imminent,” Yadav said.