January
2, 2008 Chandra Shekhar's Son
Wins in Ballia, Mayawati Gets Blow
Lucknow
Samajwadi Party nominee Neeraj Shekhar Singh, son of former prime
minister Chandra Shekhar, was Wednesday elected to the Lok Sabha
from his late father's constituency Ballia in Uttar Pradesh,
defeating the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of Mayawati.
The defeat dealt a first blow to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister
Mayawati seven months after riding on to power in the state on her
own.
BSP candidate Vinay Shankar Tiwari who bagged 164,450 votes trailed
far behind Singh who polled 295,735 votes - a victory margin of over
131,000 votes in the polls that witnessed long drawn and hectic
electioneering over the past one month.
Mayawati and her predecessor Mulyam Singh Yadav had addressed
election rallies in the constituency. Several BSP ministers camped
in Ballia in a desperate bid to snatch the seat from Chandra
Shekhar's family.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress finished way
behind. BJP's former MP Virendra Singh Mast polled 22,723 votes.
Rajiv Upadhyay (Congress) got 10,755 votes. Both the candidates lost
their respective deposits.
Chandra Shekhar (Samajwadi Janata Party) had won the Ballia seat in
2004 with the backing of the Samajwadi Party by a margin of nearly
91,000 votes. The BSP had then polled some 189,000 votes.
Chandrashekhar had been retaining the seat since 1977 except in
1984, when he lost to the Congress.
Both the BSP, which took power on its own in Uttar Pradesh last
year, and the Samajwadi Party had made the Ballia election a
prestige issue.
"This is the beginning of the end of the Mayawati government," a
beaming Mulayam told reporters shortly after the announcement of the
results here
Mayawati however blamed it all on "the dominant feudal element" in
the area. In a press release issued here, she said: "The feudal
element in Ballia did not allow ordinary voters to exercise their
franchise."
"This is not a victory of the Samajwadi Party but a personal win of
Neeraj Shekhar, who got sympathy votes because of his father's
demise."
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