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Modi’s Azamgarh visit on March 10, BJP sees seat as key to east U.P.
In June 2022, the BJP’s Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirahua’, who was defeated by Akhilesh Yadav in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, won the Azamgarh seat in a by-poll.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s proposed Azamgarh visit on March 10 is significant as it will be undertaken just ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and is being seen as an attempt to weaken the state’s main opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) in its bastion.
The Samajwadi Party has inked a pre-poll pact with the Congress in Uttar Pradesh and Azamgarh, where all 10 assembly seats were won by Samajwadi Party in 2022 U.P. polls, is among the constituencies where the Muslims and Yadavs are present in big numbers.
The fact that in 2014 the then Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav decided to contest from Azamgarh in a desperate bid to check the ‘Modi wave’ from making inroads into SP bastions like Azamgarh speaks volumes of the importance of this east U.P. district.
Mulayam’s son the current SP chief Akhilesh Yadav won the seat in 2019. In the 2022 U.P. polls, Akhilesh won the Karhal assembly seat in in Mainpuri, another SP bastion in west UP.
In June 2022, the BJP’s Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirahua’, who was defeated by Akhilesh Yadav in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, won the Azamgarh seat in a by-poll.
The by-election was held after Akhilesh quit the seat on winning from Karhal. The BJP leaders say Azamgarh, which shares borders with Mau, Gorakhpur, Ghazipur, Jaunpur, Sultanpur and Ambedkar Nagar, is the key to east U.P.
“I think Azamgarh influences politics of ‘purvanchal (east UP)’ much in the same manner as Varanasi and Gorakhpur – the other two key east U.P districts helmed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as chief minister Yogi Adityanath. Its caste profile is another reason why it is so important and that is why ahead of an important Lok Sabha election, the PM’s visit is so important,” said AP Tiwari, a political analyst.
To make a dent in SP’s vote bank, the first constituency where BJP got its new Yadav chief minister in Madhya Pradesh to visit in U.P. was in Azamgarh. During his subsequent Lucknow visit on Sunday, Mohan Yadav didn’t forget to mention his “Azamgarh roots.”
Apart from addressing a public meeting, Modi is also expected to inaugurate the Manduri airport of Azamgarh, part of Yogi 2.0’s regional connectivity scheme. He is also expected to inaugurate the Maharaja Suheldev University in Azamgarh. Ahead of Modi’s visit, chief minister Yogi Adityanath had also visited Azamgarh on Sunday.
