LUCKNOW: Preferring not to respond any further on her father and Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya’s controversial comment on Ramcharitmanas, BJP’s Badaun MP Sanghmitra Maurya said on Monday that she was more focused on ensuring that her party continues with its election winning streak.
“This is not the time to speak about it.... We should all come together to encourage voters and ensure BJP’s win in the MLC polls,” she said, while speaking to TOI. Sanghmitra’s silence is significant as she faces growing pressure from within BJP to clear her stand on the row. A day earlier, UP BJP chief Bhupendra Chaudhary had asked her to clear her stand since she was a BJP MP and was required to adhere to the party ideology.
The BJP is locked in a direct electoral contest with the Samajwadi Party in the polls for the five MLC (graduates and teachers constituency seats) on Monday. The results of the polls would be announced on Thursday.
Significantly, four days ago, Sanghmitra had maintained that her father’s comment on Ramcharitmanas was not a subject of controversy but of “discussion”. She had said that there have been discussions when people found something which was against the very character of Lord Ram. “The issue should be analysed and discussed as to why the controversy has been erupting again and again over a particular line (in the book). Some people are taking up unnecessary issues to stoke a controversy and create unrest,” she had said.
With the Lok Sabha elections still a year away, Sanghmitra, experts said, may prefer to tread cautiously while averting any possible backlash from the party high command. The BJP leadership, too, is learnt to be weighing its options heavily to ensure not to annoy the OBC community which has been one of the key elements of the saffron outfit’s poll template. BJP sources said that the party sensed a resurgent Samajwadi Party is seeking to weave in a fresh social coalition comprising OBCs, Dalits and Muslims in the run-up to the civic and then the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Sanghmitra, it may be recalled, had faced a piquant situation last year when Swami Prasad Maurya, then a minister in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet, had unfurled the banner of revolt against BJP and switched over to SP. She had then maintained that her father deserted BJP not for his own personal interest but for the interests of his community. This escalated further when Swami Prasad’s cavalcade was attacked in Fazilnagar from where he was contesting – prompting Sanghmitra to slam the BJP workers for attacking her father.
