Samajwadi Party leader Dimple Yadav seeks blessings of an elderly supporter during a public meeting ahead of Mainpuri by-elections, in Mainpuri district, on Nov. 26, 2022.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Ever since the declaration of the by-elections for the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, the urban agglomeration of Mainpuri town is witnessing visits by numerous political activists and leaders from the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). While many have stationed here, others came from neighbouring Etawah and capital Lucknow to campaign in this high-profile election necessitated following the demise of SP founder and three-time former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh. “I have not seen such a huge movement of leaders in previous elections even during the SP rule, this time MLAs are sitting in a small house for hours,” said Jairam Singh, a local teacher.
In the high-pitched battle, the SP leadership is leaving no stone unturned in reaching all the villages of the parliamentary segment which is considered its citadel. Since the nomination by its candidate, Dimple Yadav, wife of the party president Akhilesh Yadav, the entire party leadership is virtually stationed in Mainpuri. “On an average, Akhilesh Ji is doing six to seven small meetings. It is not an ordinary election for us, it is an emotional issue for us as the seat belongs to Netaji [Mulayam], hence it is natural that our leadership is attached to the people here,” senior SP leader Udayveer Singh told The Hindu.
Even Ms. Yadav is holding roughly half-a-dozen small meetings and door-to-door campaign among voters. Both Ms. Yadav and the party president have emphasised in their speeches that the late Mulayam never did politics of exclusion. In their daily outreach schedule, Dalit and extremely backward classes are definitely included. SP workers associated with the Dalit community are also being put in areas dominated by the Dalit and extremely backward communities. Political analysts in Mainpuri feel the special emphasis on these communities is due to their role in deciding the bypoll result.
BSP not in fray
“Dalit votes will be crucial to decide the outcome. Jatav and other Dalit sub-groups are in good numbers here. It need to be seen whom they support, it is more or less known which side other communities will go,” said Jitendra Pathak, a sociologist who teaches at B.R. Ambedkar Rajkiya Mahavidhyalaya, Mainpuri. In all the previous elections which the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), a Dalit-centric party fought, it polled more than one lakh votes and apart from the 2014 general elections it stood second in Mainpuri. The BSP is not contesting the bypoll.
The BJP, the key challenger, is pinning its hope on an anti-Yadav polarisation to demolish, what it believes, the final parliamentary citadel of the SP. Interestingly, the BJP leaders during campaign are heaping praises on the late Mulayam with Ministers like Social Welfare Minister Aseem Arun insisted on how the saffron party is giving proper representation to Dalits and Backward Classes while attacking the SP for changing the names of districts with Bahujan symbols and alleged criminal activities of SP supporters. Out of 17 lakh voters, roughly four lakh are Yadavs, while Shakyas, the OBC community to which the BJP’s candidate Raghuraj Singh Shakya belongs, constitute roughly three lakh electorate. Traditionally till the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Yadavs and Shakyas have voted together with neighbouring Etawah constituency allocated by the SP to a Shakya candidate. Even Mr. Raghuraj Singh Shakya himself won two Lok Sabha elections on the same formula on the SP ticket.
The relatively closer outcome of the 2019 polls, when despite being in alliance with the BSP, Mulayam was able to defeat BJP’s nominee Prem Singh Shakya by less than one lakh votes, is also giving hope to the BJP. In every elections since 2004, the difference between the winning nominee of the SP, and the runner-up was more than 2,50,000 votes. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Mulayam won by a margin of more than 3,64,000 votes.