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February 14, 1998

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Constituency profile/Akbarpur

Two-day campaign!

The backwardness of this reserved Lok Sabha constituency is readily visible, the star candidate is not.

Bahujan Samaj Party leader and former chief minister Mayawati chose Akbarpur as her vehicle to Parliament, filed her nomination, and made off to campaign in other parts of the state. She returned on Friday to address election meetings -- and was off again on Saturday evening, when the campaigning closes for Monday's ballot.

Her confidence stems from the fact that her party holds three of the five assembly segments in the constituency. The BSP candidates were returned from Akbarpur, Katehri and Tanda while Jalalpur is with the Bharatiya Janata Party and Jehangirganj with the Samajwadi Party.

Pitted against Mayawati are the BJP's Ram Triveni, SP candidate Lalta Prasad Kanaujia and Krishna Kumar of the Congress.

The misuse of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Act by the Mayawati government in the state and lack of development in the area are the main poll issues in the constituency, which has never been represented by the BJP.

Former ministers Barkhu Ram Verma and R K Chaudhary manage Mayawati's campaign.

There are 10 candidates in the fray. But, even on the last day, the hustle and bustle of electioneering is still missing. Only an occasional jeep or rickshaw with a loud hailer breaks the quiet, and not-so-plenty posters and banners remind the voters that indeed an election is at hand.

Political observers had expected the constituency to be turned into a battleground by Mayawati and her bete noire and Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav. Mulayam Singh visited the constituency thrice; so did SP leaders Amar Singh and Raj Babbar.

Chief Minister Kalyan Singh and state BJP chief Rajnath Singh have already campaigned for Triveni Ram.

While the BJP and SP blames Mayawati for misusing the SC and ST Act against the upper castes and allowing corruption in high places to continue unchecked, the former chief minister is promising speedy development in the area.

Interestingly, no party is raising the Ayodhya issue. The SP has dubbed Mayawati an 'outsider', and raised the issue of naming the birthplace of Dr Lohia after Dr B R Ambedkar.

Legislator Ram Achal Raj claims Mayawati will win hands down as the promise of development touches an emotive chord among the electorate.

Akbarpur had in 1996 returned BSP candidate Ghanshayam Chandra Kherwar. He beat his BJP rival by about 25,000 votes. However, in 1991 Ram Awadh of the Janata Dal bagged the seat, scrapping through by a razor-thin margin of 156 votes. The BSP candidate finished third.

UNI

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