UP elections: Amit Shah to hold 'Sarkar Banao, Adhikar Pao' rally in Lucknow tomorrow

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Lucknow: Union Home Minister Amit Shah will hold "Sarkar Banao, Adhikar Pao" (make government, get rights) rally in Lucknow tomorrow. Being organized by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Nishad Party, the rally will be held at 1 pm at Ramabai Ambedkar Ground in Lucknow.

Speaking about the rally, BJP Uttar Pradesh vice president Santosh Singh said that besides Shah, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Nishad Party chief Sanjay Nishad and state BJP president Swatantra Dev Singh will make their presence in the rally.

Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Ministers Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma will also present at the rally.

Top sources told ANI that the Union Home Minister, in his day-long visit to Uttar Pradesh, will also attend a "Nishad Samaj Jan Sabha" on Friday in Lucknow. The event is scheduled between 2 pm and 3 pm tomorrow.

Shah will further inaugurate 23 new branches of Uttar Pradesh Cooperative Bank between 3.45 pm and 4.45 pm on Friday. He will also dedicate 29 godowns of Uttar Pradesh State Warehousing Corporation during the event.

In the evening, Amit Shah will participate in the inauguration of the seventh National Convention of Sahakar Bharati between 4.45 pm and 6.40 pm.

Shah`s visit to Uttar Pradesh to attend `Nishad Jan Sabha` comes after the BJP formally announced an alliance with the Nishad (Nirbal Indian Shoshit Humara Aam Dal) party led by Sanjay Nishad in September this year.

BJP said it was also in talks with other small parties to fight the upcoming Uttar Pradesh 2022 assembly polls.

Political experts indicate that the Nishad community has been a useful electoral asset for the BJP as was seen during the previous elections.

Nishad party also launched a survey, along with its alliance partner the BJP, in various districts of eastern and central Uttar Pradesh in August.

The exercise was meant to identify the seats on which Nishad party nominees will be in a winnable position in the 2022 Assembly election due early next year. The survey report is learnt to be submitted to BJP national president JP Nadda to finalize the seat-sharing formula for the election.

The votes of the Nishad community are expected to be decisive in around 160 assembly constituencies in eastern and central Uttar Pradesh.

A total of 18 districts in Uttar Pradesh have a sizeable population of the Nishad community. They are Prayagraj, Firozabad, Ballia, Sant Kabir Nagar, Banda, Ayodhya, Sultanpur, Gorakhpur, Maharajganj, Auraiya, Lucknow, Unnao, Meerut, Mirzapur, Sant Ravidas Nagar, Muzaffarnagar, Varanasi, and Jaunpur.

The BJP is dominant in about 20 Lok Sabha constituencies and 60 Assembly segments in Uttar Pradesh. The seat-sharing agreement has not been announced yet. In 2017, the BJP had given a total of 19 seats to its two allies-Apna Dal(S) and the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP).