The situation of the candidates for the by-elections to nine assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh has become clear. The last date for nominations is today, October 25, a day after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Samajwadi Party (BSP) announced their candidates. The Samajwadi Party (SP) has also announced its candidates for the remaining seats after its alliance with the Congress was clear. Some inherited the successful experiment of Lok Sabha elections and others tried to right the wrongs. From the SP, the BJP to the BSP, there have been three experiments by three political parties in ticket distribution.
1- SP’s ‘Faizabad formula’ in Ghaziabad seat
The SP has fielded a Dalit leader as its candidate from the Faizabad Lok Sabha seat in Ayodhya district in the Lok Sabha elections. Faizabad seats are normal. The party repeated the same experiment in the assembly by-elections to Ghaziabad Sadar seat. Ghaziabad is a general seat and SP has given Singh Raj Jatav ticket from here. This is the first time the party has fielded a Dalit face in this general seat. In Faizabad, the Dalitkar program was hugely popular in the general seats and the party managed to win the prestigious seats.
Ghaziabad is also considered a stronghold of the BJP. This time around, only the election results will tell whether the formula succeeds or fails. SP has distributed by-election tickets through PDA formula. The party has bet on two Dalit faces, Dr Charu Kane from Khel (reserved) seat in Aligarh district and Singh Raj Jatav from Ghaziabad , while also fielding four Muslim faces and three backward faces. Talking about the Muslim candidates for SP, tickets have been given to Mohammad Rizwan from Kundarki, Naseem Solanki from Sisamau, Mustafa Siddiqui from Pulpur and Sumbul Rana from Mirapur. Akhilesh Yadav’s party fielded OBC faces including Tej Pratap Yadav from Karhal, Shobhavati Verma from Katehri seat and Jyoti Bind from Majhwan seat.
2- BJP returns to cadre and OBC model
In the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP generously provided tickets to leaders of other parties. This was also cited as a reason for the party’s poor performance. The BJP corrected this mistake by focusing on cadres in the by-elections. The BJP is contesting eight of the nine seats in Uttar Pradesh for by-elections, leaving one seat open for ally RLD. Four of the eight candidates announced by the BJP are giving priority to veteran cadres of the party. The party also rewarded Sanjeev Sharma, who left the SP 17 years ago.
Also read: Akhilesh’s bare-handed strategy or force in UP? Has Congress learned lessons from its failure in Haryana?
Anujesh Yadav, the BJP candidate from Kajhar constituency, had earlier served in the SP. Dharamraj Nishad, the candidate from Kaitri, has been serving as a minister in Mayawati’s government. He left BSP and joined SP. Meanwhile, Pulpur candidate Deepak Patel also won the election on BSP votes and won a seat on behalf of Kachana in the Assembly. The BJP has a total of four candidates from other parties, while the party is balancing cadres and outsiders by giving tickets to four dedicated leaders of the older generation of the organisation. The party disqualified Majhwan candidate Suchismita Maurya from contesting in 2022.
Also read: UP by-election: BJP gives ticket to Khel seat Surendra Diler, whose father and grandfather are both MPs.
Talking about the caste equation, the OBCs in the BJP’s list of candidates got the maximum number of votes. Four leaders from the OBC category Anujesh Yadav, Deepak Patel, Dharamraj Nishad and Suchismita Maurya managed to win seats from the BJP, while two candidates from the Brahmin category – Suresh Awasthi from Sisamau and Sanjeev Sharma from Ghaziabad . Rajput leader Ramveer Thakur is the BJP candidate from Kundarki, while the party is betting on Su from the reserved seat of Khair. Surendra Diler, the Dalit face. Apart from trying to balance the cadre in ticket distribution, the BJP’s focus on OBC is also clearly visible.
3- Similar experiment in BSP candidate list 2007
In 2007, the Socialist Party of the Philippines led by Mayawati weaved a web of social engineering and successfully formed the government with an absolute majority. From 2012 till date, the BSP has made many experiments, sometimes trying to bring Dalits and Muslims together, sometimes trying to bring Dalits and backward classes together, but the party has failed in every experiment. Now, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas appears to be back to its 2007 Dalit-Brahmin model. The Socialist Party of the Philippines announced eight candidates, three Brahmins, one Thakur, two Muslims and two from backward classes, in the nine-seat by-election a day earlier.
Also read: UP by-election: BJP adopts OBC strategy over Akhilesh’s PDA card
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has issued letters to Deepak Tiwari of Maghivan constituency in Mirzapur district, Parmanand Garg of Ghaziabad Saddar and Virendra Kumar Shu of West Samau constituency. Tickets available at karat. All three have Brahmin faces. The party has fielded a Thakur leader Jitendra Kumar Singh from Phulpur constituency. The BSP has also bet on two Muslims, leader Rafatullah alias Chhidda from Mirapur, Shahnazar and Kundarki, and two backward faces like Dr Avnish Kumar Shakya from Karhal and Amit Verma from Katehri.
