E-Paper
BSP plays Muslim card in Aligarh, fields former AIMIM dist president
Noor’s candidature has added an interesting dimension to the election as the constituency has both Muslims and Scheduled Caste voters in a sizeable number.
Battle lines were drawn in Aligarh on the very first day of nomination, after the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) declared its candidate for the forthcoming Lok Sabha election . The party has trusted a Muslim face and a former district president of AIMIM, Gufran Noor.
Noor’s candidature has added an interesting dimension to the election as the constituency has both Muslims and Scheduled Caste voters in a sizeable number.
Seat of Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh will go to polls on April 26 in the second phase and notification was issued on Thursday. Major parties have declared their candidates who along with others are to file nomination papers by April 4, which is the last date.
BSP national general secretary and former MP Munqad Ali announced the name of Gufran Noor at a press conference called in Aligarh on Thursday. Seemingly pleased, former district unit president of AIMIM in Aligarh, Noor held that the ideology of both AIMIM (All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) was not much different.
‘Both AIMIM and BSP had been working for the deprived and oppressed. Behanji (BSP leader Mayawati) had always supported Muslims besides working for the cause of the oppressed section of society,” said Noor who was confident that voters in Aligarh would support him to strengthen the hands of Behanji.
The BSP had remained a major player in Aligarh and its candidate Raj Kumari Chauhan won the Lok Sabha election in 2009. BJP’s Satish Gautam won in 2014 and Arvind Kumar Singh of BSP was runner-up. In 2019, BSP’s Ajit Baliyan also remained runner-up to Satish Gautam.
On account of a good number of Jat voters, three major parties Congress, BSP and PSP-L (Shivpal Yadav) had fielded Jat candidates in the 2019 general elections but the Brahmin candidate from BJP won. There was no Muslim face in competition in the 2019 Lok Sabha election from Aligarh.
Both BSP and SP are now in fray to stop BJP candidate Satish Gautam from scoring a hat truck from Aligarh.
