UP polls: BJP relies on its best in SP-Congress stronghold

Lucknow/New Delhi: With Bundelkhand region going to polls on Thursday, the BJP, which had pressed its top leadership — from home minister Rajnath Singh to Uma Bharati and star campaigner Prime Minister Narendra Modi — to score in this belt, is hoping to wrest a sizeable chunk of this stronghold of the Samajwadis, and to some extent the Congress.

The Bundelkhand region is dominated by OBCs who constitute 53 per cent of the population, followed by dalits who add up to 25 per cent of the population. The upper castes constitute 12 per cent, 7 per cent are Muslims and 3 per cent schedule tribes.

In the 2014 general elections, the BJP had won all four Lok Sabha seats from the Bundelkhand region. That gain came two years after the Samajwadi Party had won 24 Assembly berths and the Congress six in the 2012 Assembly polls. The BSP had won 15, and the BJP only five of the 53 seats.

During the Lok Sabha polls, despite the Congress and SP’s attempts, the entire region had swung towards the BJP for its promise of “achche din.”

The BJP, which seemed upbeat after the third phase of polling, has been pressing on its advantage in the fourth phase. Reacting to the needs of the people in this water-scarce region, the Prime Minister on Monday promised to transform this belt like Kutch in Gujarat.  Besides being an arid region, Bundelkhand also thirsts for jobs as unemployment remains a major issue in the region.

The Prime Minister also blamed the Congress, SP and BSP for the “poor plight” of Bundelkhand. Home minister Rajnath Singh exhorted people to vote for the BJP, while the saffron sanyasin and Union minister Uma Bharati, who won from Jhansi, had been crisscrossing the region. Ms Bharati went on compare the Prime Minister with “Marx and Lenin” for his “pro-poor demonetisation move.” Besides the top party leadership, the RSS also spread out across the region to canvass for votes.

For SP, too, has gone out all out to defend its turf. There have been huge rallies by UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and Congress scion Rahul Gandhi over the past few days.

The problem for the SP is that it is battling “strong anti-incumbency” sentiment in this region, and the BSP, which hadn’t fared badly in the last round of Assembly elections, has been giving it a tough fight, a Congress leader said. That’s why the SP has given more seats to the Congress in the Bundelkhand belt.

Another major battle will be fought in Rae Bareli, the home turf of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Owning to her ill health, Mrs Gandhi has been unable to campaign in her own constituency Rae Bareli. On Tuesday it was the RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav who held the fort for her.

Known for his rustic humour and acerbic tongue, Mr Yadav, while speaking to the media in Rae Bareli, described the Prime Minister as “Donald Trump’s twin brother.”

The Congress did not win even a single seat of the five Assemby segments in Rae Bareli in 2012 Assembly polls. Four seats were won by the SP, and one by an Independent candidate.

The 53 Assembly seats going to polls are in the region on Thursday are spread across 12 districts that include Rae Bareli, Allahabad, Pratapgarh, Kaushambhi, Jalaun, Jhansi, Lalitpur, Mahoba, Banda, Hamirpur, Chitrakoot and Fatehpur.

BSP turncoat Swami Prasad Maurya’s son, Utkarsh Maurya, is contesting on a BJP ticket from Rae Bareli. Utkarsh had earlier contested thrice on BSP ticket and lost.

Other prominent contestants in the fray include Independent minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh a.k.a. Raja Bhaiyya, senior Congress leader Anugrah Narain Singh and Vivek Singh, Aradhana Misra, daughter of Congress MP Pramod Tiwari, and former minister Ujjawal Raman Singh. A total of 630 candidates, including 50 women, are in the fray for this phase of the election.

Meanwhile, according to a report of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), at least 17 per cent of the candidates in the fourth phase of elections have criminal cases against them. The BJP tops the list with 19 candidates, followed by Samajwadi Party with 13 candidates, BSP with 12 candidates and the Congress with 8.