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Contestants, campaigner, rebel: Dynasts don different mantles in UP bypolls
The BJP retained the six seats it had won in the 2017 UP assembly election while the Samajwadi party retained the Malhani seat.
The Uttar Pradesh assembly bypolls saw dynasts essaying different roles. Some contested, others simply campaigned. The bypolls also had a dynast rebelling against the party and losing.
Of the seven seats that went to the polls, the ruling BJP won six and the Samajwadi Party bagged one with both parties retaining the seats they had won in the 2017 UP assembly election.
When Sangeeta Chauhan, a retired banker and the wife of former India cricketer and UP minister, the late Chetan Chauhan, was named by the BJP as its candidate from Naugawan Sadat assembly seat in Amroha, many had dismissed her as an outsider.
Despite a see-saw battle during the initial rounds of counting, when Samajwadi Party candidate Javed Abbas kept catching up with her and, at times overtook her, Sangeeta Chauhan finally prevailed.
Immediately afterwards, an emotional Chauhan said she would strive to fulfil the promises and works initiated by her late husband, whose association with Amroha was over two decades old.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath had begun campaigning from Naugawan Sadat where deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya too had sought votes for the party.
Far away from Amroha, another Sangeeta (Sengar), wife of former BJP MLA Kuldeep Sengar, who was convicted in the rape of a minor and subsequently disqualified from the assembly, was at her residence in Unnao, watching the election results where the BJP’s Shrikant Katiyar was elected as the new MLA from Bangermau.
The Sengar family had lobbied for a party ticket for Sangeeta from Bengarmau but after the bid failed to materialise, Sangeeta joined the campaign for Katiyar, the party nominee. Sangeeta Sengar is also a local BJP leader and district panchayat chairperson.
“She campaigned as, despite his conviction, Kuldeep still has a considerable following in Bangermau and that is why even opposition parties refrained from attacking the BJP over the former MLA’s conviction and disqualification,” a local BJP leader from Unnao said.
In Deoria, late BJP MLA Janmejay Singh’s son Ajay alias Pintoo rebelled against the party decision to deny his claim on his father’s seat. Ajay contested as an independent at the last minute, but failed to stop the BJP from winning.
In the Ghatampur reserved seat, where a bypoll was necessitated due to the death of sitting MLA and minister Kamal Rani Varun, her family, which was also in the reckoning for a party ticket, supported the BJP. Kamal’s daughter Swapnil actively supported the party in the by-polls.
In Bulandshahr, the BJP fielded its sitting MLA Virendra Singh Sirohi’s widow Usha and she won comfortably. In 2017 UP polls, Virendra Sirohi had won the seat. He had polled 1,11,538 votes and secured his victory over BSP’s Mohd Haji Aleem (88,454 votes), Shujaat Alam of Samajwadi Party (24,119 votes) and Bhagwan Sharma of Rashtriya Lok Dal (17,216 votes). This time Usha Sirohi’s main rival was Mohd Yunus of the BSP. Yunus put up a decent fight initially but the BJP finally won by an impressive margin of 21,702 votes
The Samajwadi Party (SP) also backed 35-year old Lucky Yadav, the son of former MLA Parasnath Yadav, whose demise led to the by-poll in the Malhani assembly seat of Jaunpur.
Despite trailing in the initial rounds of counting, Lucky Yadav prevailed against independent candidate Dhananjay Singh, a criminal-turned-politician. In 2017, Lucky’s father and former UP minister Parasnath had defeated Dhananjay by around 21,000 votes. Back then, Dhananjay had contested on the Nishad party ticket.
“If there is any lesson, it’s this. That none is bigger than the party and dynasts who followed the party line have done well, others who haven’t have flopped,” said SK Dwivedi, a political expert.
