New Delhi: Ahead of the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly Election Azad Samaj Party president Chandra Shekhar Aazad that he was confident of his victory. He told PTI, that the people of Gorakhpur will repeat the history of 1971 when a chief minister of Uttar Pradesh lost elections from the assembly constituency.
Aazad, whose party is heading the Samajik Parivartan Morcha of 36 small outfits, also pitched himself as a chief ministerial candidate from the alliance that is contesting 403 seats in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls beginning next month.
"We need to go back to the history of Gorakhpur…In 1971, a sitting chief minister, T N Singh, was defeated by the people of Gorakhpur. Similarly, Adityanath is the Chief Minister now and is responsible for the destruction of UP and Gorakhpur in the last five years," Aazad, popularly called 'Ravan', told news agency PTI.
Azad Samaj Party (ASP) decided to forge a coalition of small parties based on its not-so-good experiences with big and established parties after his talks of creating an alliance with the Samajwadi Party fell flat.
"I wanted to forge an alliance (with SP) to stop the BJP so that there is no division between opposition. When they did not want to give us our share, we refused," Aazad said according to PTI.
He also rejected allegations of being a vote cutter and cleared the air about his fallout with the Akhilesh Yadav-led party. "I am saying SP is also doing its job and so are we. I have no problem with the SP," said the 36-year-old who has emerged as a prominent Dalit face.
According to him, people in Uttar Pradesh saw the SP rule from 2012 to 2017 and the BJP from 2017 to 2022. “After being disappointed with the SP government, people voted for BJP. So, the BJP came to power because of them (SP). People will not make the same mistake again", the ASP chief said.
"I will defeat him (Adityanath), we need organisational strength for it and we have that. Their failures are plenty…inflation, Covid handling, unemployment recruitment scams, law and order and women's security, this government has failed on all counts," he said.
There was talk of Adityanath fighting from Ayodhya but this was later "changed" to Gorakhpur Urban. He knew Chandra Shekhar Aazad will contest against him so he returned to a so-called "safe seat", the ASP chief told PTI.
“If Adityanath had done good work why would he return to Gorakhpur?” "People of Gorakhpur are not afraid of him nor will they abide by his 'Tughlaqi farmans'. People of Gorakhpur will repeat the history of 1971 when they defeated a sitting Chief Minister," he said.
Born in Uttar Pradesh's Saharanpur district, Aazad launched the Bhim Army in 2014 to fight for the welfare of the Dalits. He later formed the Azad Samaj Party, a political front of the Bhim Army.
The party contested elections for the first time in the bypoll to the Bulandshahr Sadar seat in 2020. Its nominee Mohammed Yameen lost but secured 13,000 votes.
Polling for the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly is scheduled to be held in seven phases from February 10.