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Uttar Pradesh assembly polls: All parties out to win Bundelkhand battle
Major political players leave no stone unturned to woo voters in the traditionally arid Bundelkhand region for the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could not win even one of the 19 assembly seats in Bundelkhand in 2007 despite the region having been the party’s bastion since the Ram temple movement and this time all parties are out to win the electoral battle there.
The setback prompted the party to rebuild brick by brick and in the next five years it launched Mission Bundelkhand, fielding the likes of firebrand leaders Uma Bharti and Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti. The BJP went on to win three seats in the 2012 assembly polls— originally two and later bagged one in a by-poll.
It was by no means the end of the party’s Mission Bundelkhand. In October 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the mission once again with new vigour from Mahoba, one of the most backward districts, with a Parivartan rally. The strategy worked and the BJP bagged all 19 assembly seats in the region in 2017, marking a complete turnaround in its fortunes from the situation in 2007.
Ahead of the 2022 polls, the Prime Minister again revved up Mission Bundelkhand from the Mahoba police lines ground on November 19, 2021. He inaugurated four water projects that were completed at a cost of ₹3240 crore. The projects would, according to the Uttar Pradesh government, help 4.30 lakh people get drinking water in five districts.
Modi accused the previous governments of playing the game of commissions in the making of dams and drains while the people remained thirsty. Like the BJP, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), too, has been very active in the region with its chief Mohan Bhagwat visiting Bundelkhand four times in 2021. The Sangh held its all- India convention in Chitrakoot for eight days.
Like the BJP, the opposition parties are well aware of the importance of Bundelkhand. Two days before the PM’s visit, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was in Chitrakoot. She reached Bharat Ghat on the banks of the Mandakini river in a boat to launch the party’s Aadhi Aabaadi campaign to mobilise roughly 70 million women.
She interacted with the women as part of the Shakti Samvad programme from different walks of life with a new catchline “Ladki Hoon, Lad Sakti Hoon”. She also addressed the party’s first show of strength through a public rally in Mahoba.
The Samajwadi Party (SP), which notched up its best performance winning six seats in Bundelkhand in 2012, hasn’t left any stone unturned this time. Party president Akhilesh Yadav spent three days in the region as part of his Vijay Rath Yatra. Even otherwise, he’s been in the region regularly, contacting his party cadres from Chitrakoot to Lalitpur.
The intense political activity is a measure of the importance of Bundelkhand for political parties.
“The extreme backwardness of the region and other issues such as drought, water crisis, migration, unemployment, mining and so on, the region has a condensed population of farmers with small holdings, Dalits and OBCs. The parties are trying to outdo each other to send a message to Dalit, OBCs and farmers in other parts of the state,” said Vimal Sharma, president of the Bundelkhand Kisan Union.
In order to strengthen the social equations, the BJP made Swatantra Dev Singh its state president. Singh, an OBC leader, is from Jalaun in Bundelkhand. To reach out to Dalits, the party has given the task to five-time MP Bhanu Pratap Varma. Another Dalit leader and former MP Priyanka Singh Rawat has been made president of the party’s Kanpur-Bundelkhand region unit. She is the first Dalit and woman to hold this position.
The Samajwadi Party, too, has been focusing on the region with Akhilesh Yadav taking out his Vijay Rath Yatra from Hamirpur on October 13, 2021.
“For the first time, the party has been active among the Dalit and backwards who voted for the BJP the last time,” said Arvind Srivatava, social scientist in Banda.The BSP, surprisingly, has been missing from action in its stronghold. The party was at its weakest point after dominating the region for decades, said Pushpendra Singh, a progressive farmer from Banda.
