Elections in India are celebrations of the Indian democracy, and every election sees some colourful personalities adding some spice to these celebrations. Same is being seen in run up to Uttar Pradesh elections these days.
We have already seen a Samajwadi Party candidate hit himself with shoes in a rally to beg for votes, and another independent candidate declaring that his only motive to fight elections was to fool the people and earn money through dubious means:
#WATCH: Independent candidate Agra South Gopal Chaudhary says ‘my only reason for coming into politics is money, I’ll fool people” pic.twitter.com/sYfPIdhiYC
— ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) January 27, 2017
Now a local political party called “Bahujan Vijay Party” has declared a donkey as its candidate for the post of the Chief Minister. The donkey, which has been named “Gardabh Singh Yadav”, was taken to file nomination papers as a candidate from Lucknow Cantonment constituency on Monday, but was reportedly stopped by the police from doing so.
The “national” president of Bahujan Vijay Party, Keshav Chandra claimed that Gardabh Singh Yadav i.e. the donkey will prove to be a hardworking Chief Minister, who will not fool people or demand any VIP privileges.
He conceded that the donkey was illiterate, but said that no rule prevented illiterates from becoming the Chief Minister of any state.
He further said that the donkey had not paid any money to buy the ticket from the party and it deserved to become the Chief Minister because the donkey’s father wanted so.
Bahujan Vijay Party was formed in October last year by Keshav Chandra and he has got ‘sandals’ (chappal) as party symbol. Keshav had fought elections on a couple of occasions earlier himself but lost his deposits both the times. This time, he decided to make a point by fielding a donkey, which obviously remained a symbolic act.
However, Keshav can be in trouble for this stunt because only a few days back UP Police filed an FIR against a candidate because he came to file his nomination papers riding a donkey. He was booked under sections of the Prevention of Animal Cruelty Act.