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Jaswant Nagar: A constituency synonymous with victory of Yadavs
Shivpal has won the Jaswant Nagar seat 5 times in a row since 1996. This constituency initiated Mulayam Singh Yadav into electoral politics. He won his first assembly poll in 1967 as Samyukta Socialist Party candidate and won the seat seven times before handing it over to Shivpal
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JASWANT NAGAR (ETAWAH): “Make sure that you all vote so well that I win with the biggest margin in the state.”
- Shivpal Yadav, at Mankameshwar Temple in Jaswant Nagar on February 13, campaigning for himself.
“Make sure that you all vote so well that Akhilesh wins with the biggest margin in the state.”
- Shivpal Yadav, at Madhan Kheri in Karhal on February 12, campaigning for Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav.
The same person has been issuing the two statements while switching poll campaigns in the two constituencies. Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSP-L) chief Shivpal Yadav is the SP candidate on the Jaswant Nagar seat in 2022 UP assembly polls, while his nephew and SP national president Akhilesh Yadav is contesting from the adjacent Karhal seat in Mainpuri district.
“Akhilesh and I are invincible in our respective constituencies. No one can defeat us...but there should be a sort of competition between my voters and Akhilesh’s voters to defeat the BJP like never before,” said Shivpal demystifying his stance at a small gathering of supporters on the Mankameshwar temple precincts.
Shivpal Yadav has won the Jaswant Nagar seat five times in a row since 1996. Isolated and alone, he won the seat even during the Yadav family feud and strong Modi wave in 2017.
Saifai is the ancestral village of Shivpal and Akhilesh. At the end of a narrow but neat and well-surfaced road from the village to Jaswant Nagar, three men are having tea-- a Muslim - Anwar Ali, 60; a Dalit - Hariom Nai, 44; and an ascetic in a saffron robe, Shyam Giri, 80. Shyam Giri says he is “casteless”.
However, all three say: “Shivpal Yadav will win the Jaswant Nagar seat.”
About 3 km from the tea shop, is PSP-L office where PSPL and SP workers are working together for Shivpal’s win. Kamlesh Yadav, office in-charge of the PSP-L, says members of both parties are working together. “Of course, several PSP-L workers and leaders have quit since Shivpal became SP candidate,” he said.
Shivpal and Akhilesh had announced an alliance shortly before the 2022 UP elections. The SP gave only one seat to the PSP-L, which is Jaswant Nagar and fielded Shivpal as the SP candidate.
Another 3 km from the PSP-L office, on the same highway, is Guddu Fauji Dhaba (a highway eatery). This eatery is owned by BJP candidate Vivek Shakya ‘Guddu’ and is also his camp office. Mahesh Babu Gupta, zonal president of the BJP, organises Shakya’s poll campaigns.
Since the constituency came into existence in 1967, only Yadav candidates have won it. “The constituency has an electorate of 3.90 lakh, of which 1.3 lakh are Yadavs. But Shakya, Baghels, and Lodhi Rajputs (all non-Yadav OBCs) are around 1.7 lakh – which means non-Yadav OBCs are more than Yadavs and Muslims (15,000). And all Yadavs are not happy with the SP. This time, the BJP will win,” says Gupta.
Even Mulayam Singh Yadav lost elections from here twice. But even when Mulayam lost, he lost to Yadav candidates – Bishambhar Singh Yadav of the Congress in 1969 and Balram Yadav of the Congress in 1980. Not only all the winners on the seat had been Yadavs but the BJP could also never win the seat,” adds Gupta.
But even as the BJP is trying, Shivpal, despite being confident of his victory, is not leaving any stone unturned as far as campaigning is concerned. In the last 10 days, he has held 100 meetings in his constituency. He leaves his Etawah home early in the morning and returns late at night.
Not many would guess that on the voting day, the entire Mulayam Singh Yadav family including Akhilesh, Dimple Yadav, Shivpal and his family members, and nearly 50 direct family members of Mulayam would vote for Shivpal and not Akhilesh. The Yadav family members are voters in Saifai, which falls under the Jaswant Nagar assembly constituency.
Most of the SP supporters say after the alliance between Shivpal and Akhilesh, the SP will regain all seats it had lost to the BJP in 2017 as the electorate had been wanting a reunion.
As far as the more significant history of Jaswant Nagar is concerned – then it is the constituency that initiated Mulayam Singh Yadav into electoral politics.
He had won his first assembly elections in 1967 as a Samyukta Socialist Party candidate. He won it seven times before handing it over to Shivpal in 1996.
Jaswant Nagar is going to polls in the third phase of UP assembly elections (February 20) when polling will be held in 59 constituencies in 16 districts.
Meanwhile, Akhilesh Yadav also took out his ‘Vijay Rath yatra’ in Etawah on Thursday in support of SP’s Etawah candidates including Shivpal. Shivpal and Akhilesh were together atop the rath.
