Ruling party expects to combat the setback in the Lok Sabha polls through Hindu consolidation; Opposition SP feels its PDA formula and BJP’s unfulfilled promises will see its candidates through
With the Bharatiya Janata Party announcing candidates for eight of the nine Assembly seats in the byelections on November 13, the stage is set for a cracker of an electoral contest this festive season. The party has left Meerapur in Muzaffarnagar for its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).
It remains to be seen how shrugging off the Nishad Party’s strong claim on Katehri and Manjhawan impacts the ruling party’s caste arithmetic in the central region of the State.
Of the BJP’s eight candidates, three hail from the upper castes, three from the backward castes, and one is from the most backward community. The party has fielded a Dalit candidate from the Khair reserved seat.
In a surprise move, the RLD has fielded a woman candidate from a backward caste from Meerapur, a seat it held when it was in alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP).
A lot is riding on the byelections because both the parties had won four seats each in the 2022 Assembly election and the remaining seat was secured by the RLD, which has switched sides to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
BJP’s approach
In the run-up to the candidate selection, the buzz was that the BJP would come up with choices that would cut into SP’s PDA (Pichda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak or backwards, Dalits and minorities) formula but the names do not suggest that the party has made any extra effort to deepen its backward and Dalit outreach.
By showing confidence in seasoned Hindutva warhorses like Thakur Ramvir Singh in Kundarki who could not break the SP hold on the seat in three previous attempts, it seems the BJP is keen on proving that the dismal performance in the Lok Sabha election was a mere blip in the march of Hindutva.
The sense on the ground is that the central leadership has heeded to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s choices in candidate selection. Party sources said the negative narrative of the SP and Congress that worked for the alliance in the Lok Sabha election stood exposed.
On the other hand, the SP and Congress would like the INDIA bloc to consolidate the gains made in Lok Sabha election by sticking to the narrative of securing the interests of the PDA and saving the Constitution.
In a bid to prevent bickering in the alliance, after days of deliberation marked by the SP unilaterally announcing candidates for seven seats and queering the pitch for more seats in Maharashtra, the Congress on Thursday ceded all the nine seats to the SP and decided to sit out of U.P. where it secured six seats in the Lok Sabha election.