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BJP may bank on surprise element in bid to wrest Mulayam’s Mainpuri, Azam’s Rampur (Sadar)
Political experts felt the possibility of the SP fielding “someone from MSY and Azam’s family” on the two seats were high in order to prevent the BJP from making inroads in its bastion.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will make a fresh attempt to snatch the Mainpuri Lok Sabha and Rampur (Sadar) assembly seats from the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh the next month.
The ruling party, experts say, may rely on the surprise element, as despite a Modi wave elsewhere, the voters have continued to back the SP in these two constituencies.
Both the BJP and the SP have started deliberating on candidates for these seats, which were synonymous with SP political heavyweights Mulayam Singh Yadav and Azam Khan. The Election Commission (EC) has announced that bypolls to these two seats would be held on December 5.
Political experts felt the possibility of the SP fielding “someone from MSY and Azam’s family” on the two seats were high in order to prevent the BJP from making inroads in its bastion.
While chief minister Yogi Adityanath and other top leaders are expected to campaign in these by-polls, there is much curiosity on whether Akhilesh, who mostly doesn’t campaign in by-polls, would make an exception this time.
The Mainpuri Lok Sabha bypoll was necessitated after local MP Mulayam Singh Yadav’s demise on October 10. The Rampur (Sadar) assembly by-poll has been caused after Azam was disqualified as a lawmaker following his conviction in a 2019 hate speech case on October 27. Mainpuri is dominated by other backward classes (OBCs) and Rampur by Muslims — the two political mainstays of the SP.
The BJP strategists were looking at the possibility of the Samajwadi Party leadership fielding Tej Pratap Yadav, Mulayam’s grandnephew, in Mainpuri.
Tej Pratap had contested the Lok Sabha bypoll for the seat in 2014, when the SP founder vacated the seat following his twin wins from Mainpuri and Azamgarh.
“After Tej Pratap became an MP, on Mulayam Singh Yadav’s invite, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had subsequently visited Saifai for Tej Pratap’s tilak ceremony. Tej Pratap is the son-in-law of RJD (Rashtriya Janata Dal) leader Lalu Prasad Yadav and could emerge as a consensus candidate on whom even Shivpal Yadav may agree . So, the buzz around Tej Pratap is not unjustified, one that will keep the Yadav family united and make it slightly tougher for the BJP to decide on a candidate who could upstage the Yadavs in Mainpuri,” said Irshad Ilmi, a political expert.
Even before Mulayam’s demise, Shivpal had expressed his desire to contest from Mainpuri. “I will not contest if netaji (MSY) does,” he had said to queries on Mainpuri.
The BJP has never won the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat. Its political appeal in the region has been steadily increasing. Of the five assembly segments that make up the Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency, the BJP currently has lawmakers in two; the remaining, including SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s Karhal, are with the SP.
Asked about the possibility of the BJP fielding Mulayam’s daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav (wife of Prateek Yadav, MSY’s son from his second wife Sadhna), or Shivpal (who floated his own Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party- Lohia after breaking off with Akhilesh), deputy CM and BJP leader Keshav Prasad Maurya said: “No matter who is fielded, one thing is sure. Kamal hi khilega ((BJP’s election symbol lotus will bloom here).”
In the 2022 U.P. assembly polls, Akhilesh had decided to quit the Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat and contest from Karhal. The BJP had sprung a surprise then by getting Union minister SP Singh Baghel, a former security officer of Mulayam, to contest against Akhilesh.
“I think the BJP would want to field a surprise candidate, someone on whom the party could bank to make a dent in SP votebank, a prospect that they could hope to benefit from in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls,” said Athar Hussain of the Centre for Objective Research and Development.
“I also think the BJP would be more interested in penetrating Rampur (Sadar) assembly segment, from where SP co-founder and his party’s most visible Muslim face Azam Khan has won a record 10 times. Now, unless someone from Azam’s family contests, the BJP could sense a chance on the seat,” Hussain added.
In June, the BJP had won the Rampur Lok Sabha seat by-poll (caused after Azam quit the Lok Sabha to contest from his traditional Rampur (Sadar) assembly in 2022 UP polls). The BJP had fielded Ghanshyam Lodhi, a former Azam Khan aide. Back then, SP had named a local party functionary and Azam loyalist Asim Raja on the seat.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) leadership is also aware of the possibility of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which usually doesn’t contest the by-polls, fielding candidates here.
“These by-polls would have huge political spinoffs and hence much thought would go into candidate selection,” some SP leaders, requesting anonymity said.
Some of them felt in the June Lok Sabha bypoll in Azamgarh (after Akhilesh quit LS seat to contest from Karhal assembly), the SP lost in a big way due to BSP fielding a local Muslim candidate.
The BSP candidate, who bagged 29% of the vote in the Azamgarh bypoll, was also backed by Ulama Council and AIMIM. The BSP hadn’t fielded a candidate in the Rampur Lok Sabha bypoll.
