Alliance unity gives poll battle an interesting flavour in Kannauj

The battle will be harder for the BJP this time as the Congress has announced it will not field a candidate here as part of a quid pro quo in which the Congress and SP do not field candidates in the constituencies of family members of the top leadership

The Lok Sabha election is the flavour of the season in Kannauj, which famous as the 'itra (perfume)' capital of India.

The battle lines are not fully drawn in this parliamentary constituency as the BJP, the lone challenger, is yet to declare its candidate against sitting Samajwadi Party MP Dimple Yadav.

The BJP had put up a tough fight here in 2014 and lost the election to the Samajwadi Party by a mere 1.79% votes. But the battle will be harder for the BJP this time as the Congress has announced it will not field a candidate here as part of a quid pro quo in which the Congress and SP do not field candidates in the constituencies of family members of the top leadership. Besides the Bahujan Samaj Party is now an SP ally. The seat has been allotted to the SP under the poll pact between the SP and the BSP.

There had been much speculation about the constituency ever since the 2017 UP assembly polls concluded. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav had first hinted that Dimple Yadav may not contest the Lok Sabha polls at all. Recently, he declared that he will contest the seat that he won thrice.

"But going by the wishes of people of and Kannauj's party outfit," Akhilesh declared Dimple the party candidate, along with two other women, for two other constituencies on Women's Day on March 8.

This seat has been a high-profile one. Socialist icon Ram Manohar Lohia was the first MP to be elected from here in 1967. Other winners include senior Congress leader Sheila Dixit (1984), Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav (2000, 2004 and 2009) and Dimple Yadav (2012, 2014).

The BJP won the seat only once in 1996. Now, the party has resolved to win the seat following chief minister Yogi Adityanath's call for the party to bag 74 seats in UP.

Dimple Yadav had been elected unopposed from Kannauj in the 2012 by-poll after her husband quit the seat on becoming the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.

Morale of the Samajwadi Party workers is visibly high with the BSP cadres campaigning for her. The workers of the two parties have already held a round of booth level meetings. Meetings have been also held in each of the five assembly segments.

"You can see how unitedly we are working for victory (of Dimple Yadav) here. We are one," said Satish Shakya, the district secretary of Bahujan Samaj Party on the sidelines of a joint meeting at Tirwa assembly segment last week.

After losing the 2014 polls by a slender margin, the BJP won four of the five assembly segments in 2017 UP Assembly polls. Barring Kannauj Sadar seat, all the other four Chibramau, Tirwa, Bidhuna (Auriya district) and Rasulabad (Kanpur Dehat) are with the BJP.

The Samajwadi Party workers are considering the BSP's vote bank as its own now. Little wonder, they are confident of their candidate’s victory.

The SP's vote share in 2014 was 43.89% and the BJP's 42.10. "But if the SP and BSP vote share were combined, it would be substantially high at 55.35%," said SP district president Mazhaar-ul-Haq alias Munna Daroga.

Samajwadi Party MLC Rajpal Kashyap, who has already campaigned for Dimple in Kannauj, said: "We will win the seat with record votes this time with SP and BSP together."

Kashyap also said Akhilesh and Dimple nurtured the constituency well.

"The SP government got the Agra-Lucknow Expressway to pass through Kannauj and worked on the perfume industry's development here," he said.

Akhilesh also held his Twitter chaupal at Fakerey Purwa, UP's first micro grid solar powered village.

Moreover, the BSP’s 2014 candidate Nirmal Tiwari has been campaigning for Dimple this time.

"Behenji (Mayawati) will come and campaign for Bhaabhiji on April 25 in Kannuj at the joint SP-BSP-RLD rally," said Saroj Gihar, the Tirwa assembly segment in-charge of BSP.

KANNAUJ CONSTITUENCY PROFILE

Total electors in 2014: 18,08,886

For last seven successive elections, the seat is with Samajwadi Party

Socialist icon Ram Manohar Lohia was the first MP elected from here in 1967. He was Samyukta Socialist Party candidate then.

BJP won this seat only in 1996.

The Congress won it in 1971 and 1984.

The seat is known as a 'socialist seat'. Barring 1996, 1971, and 1984, candidates from socialist parties were elected from here.

Just as the SP does not field candidates against Gandhi family members; the Congress does not put up its candidate against Yadav family members. Following the tradition, Congress had not fielded a candidate against Dimple Yadav in 2014.

Dimple Yadav was elected unopposed in the 2012 by-election.

She won the seat by a narrow margin of 1.79% against her closest rival of the BJP.

The Kannauj Lok Sabha constituency has five assembly segments--three in Kannauj district and one each in Auriya and Kanpur Dehat.

Samajwadi Party bagged only Kannauj Sadar seat out of the five assembly constituencies in 2017. The four other seats — Chibramau, Tirwa, Bidhuna (Auriya district) and Rasulabad (Kanpur Dehat) — are with the BJP.

2014 vote percentage

SP: 43.89%

BJP: 42.10%

BSP: 11.46%

Combined SP-BSP: 55.35%