Lucknow, Jul 10 (IANS): The ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh Tuesday decided to fast-track its preparations for the Lok Sabha 2014 polls and appointed 58 observers for the 58 parliamentary constituencies it was defeated in the last general elections.
At a meeting held under the chairmanship of the party's national president Mulayam Singh Yadav, the party leadership also decided that no ministers of the state government and legislators would be allowed to contest the Lok Sabha polls.
At a two-hour-long meeting, the party also asked the newly-appointed observers to travel to the constituencies, talk to people, cadres and the local leadership to gauge the mind of the electorate and deliberate on local issues before submitting a detailed report to the national leadership by July 30. The party decided that a call would be taken on the 22 seats it holds presently, later.
Insiders in the party told IANS that Mulayam asked his party men to be prepared for the LS polls "anytime in 2013" and gave them a target of 50 seats. He also asked the leaders to fan out in the constituencies and try to tell them what all the government had done for them in the last three months' tenure of Akhilesh Yadav.
Yadav senior, an office bearer of the SP informed, was "a little miffed at the failure of the party cadres to take to the masses the good work of the state government."