E-Paper
Khatauli assembly bypoll: RLD-SP candidate defeats disqualified BJP MLA’s wife
RLD-SP alliance candidate Madan Bhaiya maintained a lead over his BJP rival from the initial rounds of counting for the Khatauli assembly bypoll.
Rashtriya Lok Dal-Samajwadi Party (RLD-SP) alliance candidate Madan Bhaiya defeated Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) nominee Rajkumari Saini by over 22,000 votes in the Khatauli assembly by-election in western Uttar Pradesh on Thursday.
Rajkumari Saini is the wife of the BJP’s Vikram Saini whose disqualification as Khatauli MLA after his conviction in a 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots case necessitated the bypoll.
RLD-SP alliance candidate Madan Bhaiya maintained a lead over his BJP rival from the initial rounds of counting for the Khatauli assembly bypoll.
Yogendra Singh, the RLD’s western UP president, described Madan Bhaiya’s victory as rejection of “communal politics” in the region.
Samajwadi Party leader Sudhir Panwar said the people rejected the BJP’s religion-based politics and voted on issues pertaining to their daily life.
“The BJP turned this region into a lab of Hindutva in 2013 and extracted political mileage in 2014 and 2019 elections. Voters rejected them in seven out of nine seats of the area in the 2022 assembly election. Now, they have voted against the BJP in Khatauli, which the BJP won in 2022 assembly elections.”
Khatauli assembly segment is part of Muzaffarnagar Lok Sabha constituency from where Union minister Sanjeev Balyan had won in 2014 and 2019.
The BJP’s Muzaffarnagar district president Vijay Shukla said, “We did our best in the election, but it was the people’s mandate which we accept.”
The BJP had won all nine assembly seats in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts in the 2017 elections. In 2022, the BJP won only two of these assembly seats (Muzaffarnagar and Khatauli). BJP MLA Vikram Saini had defeated RLD’s Rajpal Saini by over 16,000 votes in the 2022 U.P. assembly polls.
The situation changed in barely nine months and led to the BJP’s defeat.
During the bypoll campaign, Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Jayant Chaudhary raised issues of unemployment, Agniveer scheme, sugarcane dues and “bhaichara” (harmony) among people of all castes and communities.
Azad Samaj Party president Chandrashekhar Azad also joined hands with the RLD and Samajwadi Party. The constituency has over Dalit 50,000 voters.
