Click to play videoBadaun (UP): 'Vikas' or development is what everyone is promising in the election battleground of Uttar Pradesh these days.
But in Bisauli district, the word rings in a different meaning as criminal Vikas Yadav's mother Umlesh goes about seeking votes.
“The public has not yet made any demands. They first want my son to win and then they will demand,” says Umlesh.
Vikas's father, history sheeter and former minister D P Yadav, fielded Umlesh after the Supreme Court rejected his son's plea to contest the Assembly polls.
The don himself is in the fray from Sahaswan and is getting some star support in form of Bollywood actors Zeenat Aman and Ranjeet.
But voters seem to be having a different Vikas on their minds.
“Many people with criminal backgrounds are contesting. If we support his mother we will be supporting a criminal,” says a voter Saloni.
Saloni’s opinion finds an echo in many others. Voters in this Yadav-dominated seat say they would prefer a candidate with a clean image.
“I will vote for someone with a clean past without any criminal record and not for someone who has crime running in the famil,” says another voter Sachin Kumar.
But D P Yadav is no political pariah in UP. His Rastriya Parivartan Dal has teamed up with the Jan Morcha of former Prime Minister V P Singh for these elections.
It's often caste arithmetic and lathi power that decides the political outcome in these parts. That, perhaps, explains the niche of the Yadav clan in Badaun.
Clarification: The Jan Morcha has said it has no alliance with the Rastriya Parivartan Dal and its leader DP Yadav. A spokesperson of Jan Morcha has said there is "no link or tie up" between Jan Morcha leader and former prime minister V P Singh and D P Yadav.
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