Lok Sabha Elections 2019: Both sides banking on social engineering for victory in Etawah

The Etawah constituency is now a Dalit dominated seat, especially after the Jaswant Nagar assembly segment became part of the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat after the fresh delimitation of constituencies in 2008.

The Etawah Lok Sabha by-election in 1991 was a milestone on the road to firming up an alliance between the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) which was later witnessed in the 1993 assembly polls in UP.

The SP and BSP are back together in 2019 after having spent over two decades as bitter political rivals. (ANI)

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founder Kanshiram announced his candidature from the Etawah Lok Sabha seat during the 1991 by-poll which was held after violence led to the initial election being put off.

“No one took notice of him or his candidature in the first few weeks in Etawah,” said Khadim Abbas, his election manager in 1991 and a founding member of the BSP in Etawah.

That was the time when the BSP founder was welding the Scheduled Castes in UP into a political force.

His game-changing political formula, ‘jiski sankhya bhari-uski utni hissedari’ (share in power according to population), was slowly taking shape on the ground.

As the days went by, the BSP began gaining strength on the ground. Kanshiram campaigned on a bicycle covering about 40 to 50 km in a day with his supporters, said Khadim.

“Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was then with the Janata Dal, helped ‘Manyavar’ (Kanshiram) in this election silently. He believed in his struggle and politics,” he said. Kanshiram won against BJP’s Lal Singh Verma.

In a way, it was the beginning of a new political relationship between Kanshiram and Mulayam Singh Yadav. Their alliance in the 1993 assembly elections checkmated the BJP, which had looked to be in a position to inflict a crushing defeat on all other political parties in the first post-Babri mosque demolition poll in the state.

The BJP could not match the social engineering of two parties, which brought the other backward classes (OBCs) and scheduled castes (SCs) together. At the time, the BJP was seen as a party largely supported by the upper castes.

The SP and the BSP are back together in 2019 after having spent over two decades as bitter political rivals. They are now looking to win the battle in Etawah with the support of the Dalits and the backward castes.

The BJP has changed its candidate in Etawah, bringing in former union minister Ram Shankar Katheria from Agra. Katheria was born at Bharthana in Etawah district and did his graduation from KK Degree College.

Katheria was also a full-time Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh pracharak in the Etawah belt. His work in aligning the non-Jatavs with the BJP went in his favour when the party decided to replace its sitting MP Ashok Dohrey, a Jatav, people close to Katheria said.

Lok Sabha 2019 constituency: Etawah was once SP’s pocket borough

The BJP had won all 17 reserved Lok Sabha seats in UP in 2014 and it is aiming to repeat the performance now.

“The BJP doesn’t want to lose the advantage it has among the non-Yadav OBC and non-Jatav SCs. It was very much reflected in the way candidates were changed on the reserved seat,” said DK Shakya, a poll analyst.

“The party had worked hard in the last eight years in Etawah; the region served as lab for the BJP to experiment with its social engineering,” he said.

Backward and Dalit leaders from the Sangh and the BJP, including deputy chief minister Keshav Maurya, did the spadework to try and get the social algorithm to work in the party’s favour.

The Etawah constituency is now a Dalit dominated seat, especially after the Jaswant Nagar assembly segment became part of the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat after the fresh delimitation of constituencies in 2008.

Dalits constitute about 26% (4.50 lakh) of the 17.39 lakh voters in Etawah. Half of the Dalits there are Jatavs. Chaks, Koris, Katherias and Valimikis make up the others.

There are 1.5 lakh Lodhis, 1 lakh Shakyas, 2.25 lakh Brahmins, 1.80 lakh Yadavs and 1.20 lakh Muslims. “Etawah is a prestigious seat because of Samajwad Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and the social engineering battle is on there,” said Khursheed Alam, a poll expert. Etawah is the home district of Mulayam who is contesting the Lok Sabha election from Mainpuri.

The SP-BSP alliance has fielded Kamlesh Katheria, son of local SP local leader Premdas Katheria who lost the 2014 elections to BJP’s Dohrey. Kamlesh had contested the 2017 assembly elections, but lost.

The Congress has fielded Ashok Dohrey and Shivpal Yadav’s Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia has put up Shambhulal Dohrey.

“All the candidates in Etawah are Dalits and this has not only made the battle interesting but extremely tight,” says Pankaj Yadav, a degree college teacher.

To counter the BJP, the opposition alliance started to get its act together even before the tie-up was formally announced.

Workers of the two parties held more than 100 joint meetings in Etawah alone. These meetings began and ended with the slogan, ‘Jai Bhim, Jai Samajwad’.

“Repairing the Yadav-Dalit fault-lines was a priority for smooth transfer of votes; things have changed on the ground and the communities no longer see each other as adversaries,” said Kishan Jatav in Akbarpur near Etawah.

In 2014 elections, the SP and BSP had a combined vote share of 48.89% against BJP’s 46.71%. “To defeat the BJP, we all know that we will have to fight as one; the alliance has a good chance of defeating the BJP this time,” said Virendra Yadav of Bhartana.

In Vishunpur Loharai, Ram Naresh Savita said the alliance was going strength to strength in this election and could give the country its first dalit prime minister.

“Abki baar Behenji (BSP chief Mayawati) ki sarkaar,” he said.