General elections 2019: BJP's Subrat Pathak faces Samajwadi Party's Dimple Yadav in Kannauj
Subrat Pathak, the BJP's candidate from Uttar Pradesh's Kannauj, the high-profile seat where Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple Yadav is fighting her second Lok Sabha election, took a swipe at her for what he claimed was not doing enough for farmers and the poor in his constituency.
"People are the boss in politics. Whoever they want they will put on the seat and whoever they don't want they will remove the person and throw away. Their (Samajwadi Party) gathbandhan is with (Mayawati's) BSP, ours is with the people. There is no other gathbandhan bigger than the people's gathbandhan," Mr Pathak, who lost by 20,000 votes to Dimple Yadav in the 2014 national election, told NDTV today after he cast his vote.
Dimple Yadav was elected unopposed to the Kannauj Lok Sabha seat in 2012 after her husband vacated the seat to become the chief minister. Two candidates of regional parties had withdrawn their nominations and the BJP and Congress did not field anyone. "Everyone knows how dimple Yadav won from here," Mr Pathak said.
Kannauj is Uttar Pradesh's potato belt and farmers have in the recent past protested against the government over price rise and lack of support.
"Potato farmers are not angry with BJP. In fact no farmer is angry with the BJP. For the first time the BJP government in a revolutionary step fixed minimum support price for potatoes," the BJP candidate said.
"In 2012, the Samajwadi Party under Akhilesh Yadav promised they would set up a potato marketing committee and a cycle factory in Kannauj, but neither the committee nor the factory has been set up," he said. "We didn't promise anything... Rs 700 crore is being invested in Thathiya (in Kannauj) by PepsiCo to make a chips factory. The land has been acquired and work will begin after the election. The BJP doesn't beat drums; we do real work for the people, that's why people have faith in (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi ji," Mr Pathak told NDTV.
Dimple Yadav, while filing her nomination earlier this month, had said her victory margin will be huge since there is an alliance between SP-BSP. "BJP did not fulfil its promises and now to divert attention, it is using the security forces. It has been a failed government," she had said.