BJP looks to capture Samajwadi Party strongholds in Uttar Pradesh

In May 2004, then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav addressed a series of public meetings in Mainpuri district, asking voters whether to retain the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat that he had won recently or retain the CM’s chair by resigning from the prestigious parliamentary seat.

Taking a cue from the people, Yadav publicly announced that he would resign from the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat and continue as CM. He quipped: “The post of the UP chief minister is only next to the Prime Minister…”
 

More than 18 years after that episode, Mainpuri is gearing up for a parliamentary by-poll on December 5, 2022, but in the absence of its most outstanding representative yet. The Samajwadi Party (SP) patriarch passed away after a prolonged illness on October 10.

Apart from Mainpuri, the Rampur Assembly constituency will also go to the by-election on December 5, following the disqualification of SP leader Mohd Azam Khan from the UP Assembly, after being convicted in a 2019 hate speech case by the Rampur district court last month. 

Both Mainpuri and Rampur are considered strongholds of the SP because of their considerable respective Yadav and Muslim populations, which together constitute the formidable M-Y nucleus of the socialist party.

Though the M-Y formula has weakened over the successive years, especially after Narendra Modi became PM in 2014 and Yogi Adityanath assumed power in 2017, the SP political pitch has never hidden its appeal to the two communities in the run-up to elections.

Mainpuri has more than 1.5 million voters, of whom Yadavs form the dominant segment with a 0.5 million population, followed by Kshatriya and Shakya at nearly 0.3 million voters each. The remaining belong to other castes and communities.

Even as the SP is bracing itself for the crucial by-polls in Manipuri and Rampur, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is eager to upend the former at the hustings to clinch the two elections.

After the 2022 UP Assembly polls, which the BJP won comfortably, the party also emerged victorious in the Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha by-polls held in June 2022.

The two seats fell vacant after the sitting representatives of the constituencies—SP President Akhilesh Yadav and Khan—resigned from their seats to retain their UP legislative Assembly seats (Karhal and Rampur constituencies, respectively).

The BJP is seeking to repeat that coup in the Mainpuri Lok Sabha and Rampur assembly constituencies, when the votes are cast next month. On its part, the SP will also try to invoke sympathy in the Mainpuri constituency which has been the staple parliamentary constituency of Mulayam for many years.

Young BJP legislator Shalabh Mani Tripathi said the party shall romp home victorious in all the state by-poll battles.

“This year, the state witnessed by-polls in the Azamgarh and Rampur parliamentary constituencies, where specific segments of voters are seen as the decisive factors. However, the BJP clinched the two by-polls on the basis of good law and order, abundant power supply, and non-partisan distribution of free ration,” he told Business Standard.

More recently, the BJP also managed to retain the Gola Gokarannath Assembly seat in Lakhimpur Kheri district with the party nominee Aman Giri defeating SP candidate Vinay Tiwari by a margin of more than 34,000 votes in the by-election. The seat had fallen vacant after the demise of Aman’s father Arvind Giri. The SP alleged the misuse of the official machinery by the BJP in the by-polls.

Meanwhile, the two parties have started the groundwork on the Azamgarh and Rampur seats by holding consultations with their local cadre to choose the right candidate for the elections and prepare the poll strategy. SP announced to field Akhikesh's wife Dimple Yadav from Mainpuri seat.

Greater than the result of the by-polls, it is the prestige associated with these constituencies that is driving the two rival political outfits to pull all stops to checkmate the other. Senior SP leader and former UP Cabinet minister Rajendra Chaudhary said the party was in the process of galvanising local workers and leaders for the by-polls.

“The BJP has been blatantly misusing the official machinery to murder democracy… people will give them a befitting reply by electing SP candidates,” he said, adding the party would take steps to ensure that the ruling dispensation did not resort to impropriety during the elections.

Meanwhile, a by-election will also be held in the Khatauli assembly constituency in Muzaffarnagar district on December 5. The seat fell vacant after the sitting representative, the BJP’s Vikram Singh Saini, was disqualified following his conviction in a case of Muzaffarnagar riots.

While the BJP is striving to maintain its record of virtual invincibility in the upcoming UP by-polls, the challenger SP will try to retain at least Mainpuri and Rampur to boost the morale of its cadre and create a positive template ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.