Road to Delhi goes via Kanpur; seat set to witness fight between BJP, Cong

Kanpur Lok Sabha constituency is a bellwether of India’s voting behaviour, boast keen observers, mostly comprising the city residents. They assert that whoever wins Kanpur forms the government in New Delhi. This assertion is not misplaced after all. It has been true since 2004 and mostly since 1977, with the exceptions of 1991 and 1999.

Against this backdrop, the leaders of the opposition INDIA bloc - comprising the Congress, the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Left and the Aam Aadmi Party - gathered for their coordination committee meeting opposite the city’s Gunjan Talkies on Wednesday. They were concerned about forging some synergy among their respective workers in favour of Congress candidate Alok Misra. The local workers were busy making preparations to make Friday’s joint rally of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav a success.

Kanpur is scheduled to go to polls on May 13, and the locals appear to be in thrall of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. “The pran pratishtha ceremony of the Ram temple in Ayodhya has convinced me to vote for the BJP again,” said Ramesh Dubey, a trader. The Opposition is convinced that their plank that another majority BJP government at the Centre will tamper with the Constitution has persuaded many to vote against the BJP.

“I do fear they will change Babasaheb (BR Ambedkar)’s Constitution,” says Rakesh Kureel, an auto rickshaw driver.  

The opposition bloc has also made an effort to reach out to the Scheduled Castes of the constituency, getting a woman from a Valmiki community, wife of a former legislator, to inaugurate Misra’s campaign office. Interestingly, AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is prominently mentioned in the opposition bloc’s meetings and features on hoardings alongside Gandhi and Yadav. For a city known for its urban squalor and crumbling education and health infrastructure, AAP’s work in Delhi resonates with the poor cutting across caste and religious lines.   

The Congress, for the first time since 1996, has fielded a candidate other than former Union minister Sriprakash Jaiswal. He won in 1999, 2004 and 2009 and lost in 2014 and 2019. For the BJP, party veteran Murli Manohar Joshi shifted from Varanasi, which Modi contested, to Kanpur in 2014, and defeated Jaiswal. In 2019, Satyadev Pachauri defeated Jaiswal. The BJP has again dropped its incumbent member of Parliament (MP) and fielded Ramesh Awasthi. On June 4, the people will know whether Kanpur lives up to its bellwether status again.