Budaun awaits to elect outsider with Yadav-Muslim support

Outsiders here have always been greeted with unusual grace in poll times so much so that people have been voting them to power for the past 25 years, relegating the imperative of being a local to the background.   

The trend started in 1984 when a Allahabad resident and a friend of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi — Salim Sherwani — was elected from here on a Congress ticket. Current JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav won on a Janta Dal ticket in 1989. BJP's Chimayanand Maharaj became voters' favourite in 1991, riding the Ram Mandir wave.  

In 1996, Salim Sherwani, who is currently the Congress candidate from here, had won the Budaun Lok Sabha seat on a Samajwadi Party ticket, thanks to the Muslim-Yadav vote combination, and continued his winning streak through 1998, 1999 and 2004.   
  
Carrying forward the trend, top 4 out of 10 nominees in the fray from here are not from Budaun. They include Salim Sherwani of the
Congress, who parted ways with the SP after the friendship of Mulayam Singh Yadav with Kalyan Singh, SP supremo Mulayam's nephew Dharmendra Yadav, DP Yadav of the BSP and industrialist and JD(U) nominee DK Bharadwaj.   

While Salim Sherwani is from Allahabad, DP Yadav is from Ghaziabad, Dharmendra Yadav from Etawah and Bharadwaj Delhi.    

The constituency, which goes to the polls in the last phase of the 15th general elections on May 13, comprises five assembly segments.