Elections 2014: 4-cornered contest in Aligarh

The fight will mainly be between BSP, SP, BJP and AAP

The Aligarh parliamentary seat will be mainly a fight among BSP's foreign-educated nominee, a former MP from the constituency who is the Congress candidate here, an industrialist leader of SP and an 'outsider' BJP contestant.

There are 14 candidates in the fray, including AAP's Sabir Raahi.

In place of sitting MP Raaj Kumari Chauhan, her 27-year- old foreign-educated son, Arvind Kumar Singh, has been fielded by BSP. Singh's father and sitting MLC Jaiveer Singh is widely considered the Thakur face of the party.

In the last elections, Raaj Kumari had defeated SP candidate Zafar Alam by about 15,000 votes.

Alam had his way when, as the SP candidate, he won the Aligarh City Assembly seat by a huge margin in polls in 2012. He is being considered a formidable challenger this time, but the fallout from the Muzaffarnagar riots may dent SP's prospects in western Uttar Pradesh.

But Alam, who is also a prominent industrialist, enjoys a clean image which he expects will offset his party's disadvantage.

BJP held this seat for four consecutive terms from 1991 onwards. Four-time MP Sheela Gautam enjoys considerable clout in this district and it was widely expected that her son Rahul Gautam would contest on the party's ticket this time.

The party, however, chose to pick Satish Gautam, who is viewed as an outsider but is believed to be close to BJP Vice President Kalyan Singh.

The open dissent in BJP on the ticket issue is causing anxiety among the party's poll managers. It remains to be seen whether the internal bickering in BJP continues till the polling date of April 10 or dies down before that.

Congress contender Choudhry Brijendra Singh won this seat in the 2004 elections. In 2009, too, he put up a stiff fight, securing more than 1.5 lakh votes.

The decline in his party's presence in western UP could be somewhat offset by the reported revival of support for it following the reservation given to Jats by the UPA government just a few weeks back.

He is counting on the solid support from the approximately two lakh Jat voters here to bolster his prospects in this altered scenario. His party's alliance with RLD could also prove helpful.

There are over three lakh Muslim voters in this constituency and a last-minute polarisation of votes may upset all calculations.

The widely talked about "tactical voting" by Muslims against BJP candidates is an unknown factor and it remains to be seen whether that actually takes place.

Similarly, if the polarisation of Jat votes in favour of the Congress candidate, who is himself a Jat, does not materialise then that would work to the advantage of BJP, which has consolidated its hold among the community in western UP.