Uttar Pradesh: Poll moves to eastern flank, Mayawati shrill pitch on migrants, stray cattle

LUCKNOW: With the final three phases of elections centred around eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has decided to shift focus on migration and stray cattle as campaign issues.Eastern UP, said a party member, continues to be a backward region where largescale migration for livelihood is a perennial problem. Party chief Mayawati raised these issues on Friday, signalling the party’s agenda for the final poll lap.“With inflation, poverty, unemployment, politics of hate, law and order, stray cattle menace and migration topping the agenda, Opposition parties are finding it hard to find support. This is a positive indication with BSP contesting the polls on these issues so that it can once again form a government with clear intent and good governance like in 2007,” she said.Party sources active in eastern UP said, door-to-door campaigning will be carried out with a focus on these issues. “Farmer issues formed a key poll plank across the state, not just west UP. The eastern flank too faces problems of irrigation and cultivability. With little income from farming, hundreds of youth are forced to migrate to other cities and states. The problem of stray cattle has also risen over past five years due to Yogi Adityanath’s policies, which has had a massive impact on farmers here. BSP is raising these matters with people,” said a senior party member.Another BSP member campaigning in Mau and Ghazipur said, contrary to government claims that youth were given jobs after they returned home during the lockdown, hundreds of them are at home and still jobless. “There are people who lost jobs during the pandemic and still have no means of livelihood. BJP will not dare raise this issue as they had been peddling lies all along. Behenji has been saying in all her rallies that migration stopped during her regime and people returned to the state. We are reminding people about that time,” he said.