Bahujan Samaj Party Chief Mayawati on Wednesday held a key meeting of BSP party leaders in Lucknow to step up preparations for Lok Sabha elections in 2024. The meeting held at the party headquarters in Lucknow was attended by the Chief Zone-in-charge, the District president, and the office bearers of the All India Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation (BAMCEF). Party sources said the expansion of the organisation, preparation of the party for high stakes battle and booth-level poll strategy, were among the issues, which were discussed in the meeting. The BSP remains unaligned not having joined the INDIA alliance or the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by the BJP. Earlier in the month, the party released its first list of candidates for the upcoming Madhya Pradesh assembly elections scheduled to be held at the end of this year. According to the list issued by the party, the names of candidates for seven seats out of 230 have been announced. Of these seven assembly constituencies, two seats are in Rewa, two in Satna, and one each in Chhatarpur, Niwari and Morena districts. Among the seven seats, six seats are of unreserved category and one is reserved for the scheduled caste category. In the 2019 general elections the BSP and the Samajwadi Party led by Akhilesh Yadav had fought in an alliance. The two parties failed to make an impact with the BSP winning 10 of the 38 seats it contested, while the SP won 5 of the 37 seats from where it fielded candidates. After that debacle the BSP decided to go it alone in the assembly elections in 2022.(ANI)