Although the elections for Lok Sabha are scheduled to be held in 2014, clearly the leadership of Samajwadi Party does not rule out the possibility of early polls.

Releasing the first list of his party, Prof Ram Gopal Yadav said that his party should be ready to meet any eventuality and face the election as when it takes place.

It would be worth mentioning here that the SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav is working very hard to achieve the target of 55-60 seats in Lok Sabha from UP, keeping in mind the distant possibility of his becoming the Prime Minister, should the voting results in a hung Lok Sabha, or at least, in reduced circumstances, play the kingmaker.

Prof Ram Gopal Yadav also made it clear that releasing the list early would also help the candidates to reach out to all voters in time. “Even if any candidate visits their constituency with 200 vehicles at the eleventh hour, he would not able to contact voters,” opined the sagacious Ram Gopal Yadav.

The manner in which four members of Yadav family were given the ticket to be candidates made it clear that party had no problem in giving tickets to relatives of senior leaders. Significantly, the list contains the names of Mulayam Singh Yadav, who will be contesting from Mainpuri, his daughter-in-law and wife of chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, Mrs Dimple Yadav contesting from Kannauj, Akchay Yadav, son of Prof Ram Gopal Yadav from Firozabad, and, Dharmendra Yadav, nephew of Mulayam, from Badaun.

Samajwadi Party has also given Lok Sabha tickets to wives, sons and daughters of other senior leaders.

While on one hand, ticket has been given to Anand Baduaria, who represents the young team of chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, on the other, the party has also given ticket to Arun Kumar Shukla, alias Anna, who’s facing several criminal charges and carries the tarnished image of having been the leader of a crime gang in the past.

A closer analysis of the list reveals that the party had made an attempt to maintain caste balance for vote politics pandering to different castes. Out of 55 tickets announced so far, 10 tickets have been given to Kshatriyas, four to Muslims, eight to Yadavs, four to Brahmins, five to Kurmis, two each to Jats and Nishads and 14 to scheduled castes and tribes for reserved constituencies. It would be worth mentioning here that with 80 Lok Sabha seats, UP plays a very important role in government formation at the centre.

The list also includes seven women but only four tickets to Muslims surprised the political analysts as Muslims had given tremendous support to Samajwadi Party in UP Assembly polls and helped the party to come to power.

But senior leaders maintain that Muslims would be given more tickets in remaining 25 Lok Sabha seats to be announced later on.

Although Samajwadi Party has not yet announced the candidates for remaining 25 seats, political analysts expect that the party would not field candidates against Sonia Gandhi in Rae Bareili and Rahul Gandhi in Amethi.

Congress, too, had not fielded the party candidates against Dimple Yadav, who recently won the Kanauji Lok Sabha seat in the by-elections, as the seat was earlier won and vacated by her husband Akhilesh Yadav, who later on became chief minister.

Prominent political analyst Ramesh Dixit also feels that the manner in which the Samajwadi Party has announced its list so early on, would give the much needed advantage to the party during their extensive campaigning. (IPA)