The assembly election in Shahjahanpur district is revolving around Uttar Pradesh finance and parliamentary affairs minister Suresh Khanna, who is looking for his ninth successive win on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket in the UP polls.
Suresh Khanna has won the Shahjahanpur assembly seat eight times since 1989 by a comfortable margin. While the BJP has campaigned extensively in the district, its rivals, including the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress, have mobilised their resources in a bid to halt Khanna’s winning spree in the UP polls. Shahjahanpur goes to polls in the second phase on Monday (February 14).
Nevertheless, the BJP supporters are confident that he will win again by a big margin as, after becoming minister, he launched several development projects in the district. For instance, the facilities at the medical college have improved, a ring road has been constructed and the traffic system streamlined.
The constituency automatically got VIP status with a big leader of the ruling party representing it, said Sukesh Verma ,who runs a provision store in the Shahvegpur locality.
Even so, the anti- incumbency factor has put the BJP on the defensive and, to counter the challenge posed by the rival candidates, Khanna has organised a concentrated campaign in the localities that are considered strongholds of the SP and the BSP.
{{/usCountry}}Even so, the anti- incumbency factor has put the BJP on the defensive and, to counter the challenge posed by the rival candidates, Khanna has organised a concentrated campaign in the localities that are considered strongholds of the SP and the BSP.
{{/usCountry}}Besides, the city has large a Sikh population and the mowing down of four farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri district on October 3 will also make an impact on the fortunes of the candidates here, said Moolchand Yadav, a member of the Shahjahanpur traders’ association.
The SP has fielded Tanveer Khan, the BSP Suresh Chandra aka Dhandhu Mishra and the Congress Poonam Pandey for the Shahjahanpur assembly seat.
Top BJP leaders, including Union home minister Amit Shah, party president JP Nadda, defence minister Rajnath Singh and chief minister Yogi Adityanath campaigned for the party candidates in Shahjahanpur.
The BJP hopes that it will get the support of the Brahmins after Congress leader Jitin Prasada joined the party and was inducted into the Yogi Adityanath cabinet last year.
The SP and BSP leaders also launched a campaign to regain the lost ground in the district.
In the 2017 assembly election, the BJP had won five out of the six seats in the district, including Shahjahanpur, Katra, Tilhar, Powayan and Dadraul while the SP bagged Jalalpur. In 2012, the BJP won only the Shahjahanpur assembly seat in the district.
Sitting MLA and BJP rebel Roshanlal Verma is contesting the Tilhar seat on the SP ticket whereas the BJP has fielded Salona Kushwaha, the BSP Nawab Faizan Ali Khan and the Congress Rajnish Gupta.
For the Katra seat, the BJP has fielded sitting MLA Veer Vikram Singh, the SP Rajesh Yadav, the BSP Rajesh Kashyap and the Congress Munna Singh.
The SP has denied the party ticket to Sharadvir Singh, who won the Jalalabad seat in 2017, and pitted Neeraj Nalinish against the BJP’s Hari Prakash Verma, the BSP’s Anuruddha Singh and the Congress’s Gurmeet Kaur.
The BJP has retained sitting MLA Chetaram Pal from Powayan against the SP’s Upendra Pal Singh, the BSP’s Uday Veer Singh and the Congress’s Anuj Kumari.
In Dadraul, the sitting BJP MLA Manvendra Singh’s poll rivals are Rajesh Kumar Verma of the SP, Chandraketu Maurya of the BSP and Tanvir Safdar of the Congress.
Describing Shahjahanpur as the land of revolutionary freedom fighters, Shiv Kumar Sharma, a teacher, said the trio of Ahmadullah Shah, Khan Bahadur Khan and Shehzade led the first freedom struggle against the British in 1857. Later, Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqullah Khan and Roshan Singh contributed to the freedom movement by launching the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA). The trio were charged in the Kakori case of 1925 and hanged by the British government, he said.