Election 2024: BJP hopes that Ram will win in Ravana’s in-laws house.

Posted on by

According to many accounts, the first phase of voting for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections on April 19 has put the BJP on the backfoot. It seems that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s distraction politics and excessive emphasis on Hindutva has resulted in low turnout.

All eyes are now on voting on April 26 on eight crucial seats in western Uttar Pradesh and 13 other seats in Rajasthan, where the Indian faction led by the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress is determined to make further dents in the BJP. . Luck.

Of the eight seats where elections are going to be held in UP, Meerut, Baghpat, Amroha, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Aligarh, Mathura and Bulandshahr (reserved), the battle for Meerut can be seen as a litmus test for the Hindutva brigade. has been, mainly because the BJP has parachuted in actor Arun Govil, best known for playing Lord Ram in the 1987 television series Ramayanain city.

The BJP believed that fielding Govil in Meerut would help them garner votes in the name of Ram, given that the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya has echoes here too. The average Meerut citizen is proud of the fact that their city was the home of Mandodari, the wife of Rama’s arch enemy Ravana, and hence is revered as Ravana. in-laws house (In-laws’ house).

But it seems the gambit did not pay off, largely because Govil is seen as an outsider even within the party rank and file. Rajendra Agarwal, the BJP’s winner from Meerut in 2014 and 2019, has developed strong local ties, and many average BJP workers, in quiet defiance, have refused to campaign for Govil.

The SP-Congress alliance has fielded Jatav leader and former mayor Sunita Verma to contest from Govil. Verma is also expected to take advantage of the constituency’s large Dalit-Muslim community, which comprises about 50 per cent of Meerut’s voter population, with a voter turnout of about 30-20 between Muslims and Dalits.

Ahmed Hasan, a shopkeeper in Sadar Bazaar area, said, “We would have preferred a Muslim candidate but in 2019, Yakub Brother (Qureshi), who was fielded by the SP-BSP-RLD alliance, lost by a very narrow margin as the Hindu votes united against him. This time Behenji (BSP leader Mayawati) has fielded a Tyagi Brahmin candidate (Devvrat Tyagi), so Muslim voters will vote in favor of the bicycle (SP’s election symbol).

Political analysts believe that BJP is on the backfoot as caste solidarity is also not working in its favor. Ambedkar of Meerut has strong feelings colony That if Modi returns to power with a large majority, he will change the Constitution and stop all reservations being given to members of the SC (Scheduled Caste) community.

Ashe Ram, a mason who lives in a slum with a large Dalit population, said, “Behenji’s core vote bank (Dalit voters) remains intact, but many of the younger generation have moved away from them. In the last elections, we supported Modi. ” But we doubt them now. Modi is a rich supporter and can do anything if he returns to power.”

But Dalits are not the only major caste that has turned its back on Modi. Upper caste Rajputs, Sainis and Tyagis are also dissatisfied with the ruling party. In fact, leaders of all three communities are openly calling for a boycott of the BJP for “under-representing” them in western UP.

Rajput leader Thakur Puran Singh has repeatedly said publicly that the ruling party is not only distorting the “glorious history” of Rajputs but also denying equal rights to the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category. .

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and BJP’s star campaigner Yogi Adityanath has been brought in to try to stop this trend, and he has been holding rallies in different parts of the constituency, taking the name of Ram and saying, “Who to hit have brought, you have to bring them (You need to bring the people who brought Ram to you).”

But even though farmers in the region express gratitude for several central government projects like the Rapid Rail Project and the recent Ganga Expressway, which have enriched many local farmers, they are in no mood to forgive the government for this perception. Are not. Step-motherly treatment of the entire farming community.

This sentiment is shared in many constituencies, including Baghpat, where many Jat farmers are openly criticizing RLD (Rashtriya Lok Dal) chief Jayant Chaudhary’s decision to join the BJP in view of his anti-farmer stance.

Mukund Ram, a farmer with a three-acre farm on the main Delhi-Baghpat highway, said, “We are all supporters of Chaudhary Charan Singh, but this is the first time in 47 years that no member of Charan Singh’s family is contesting the elections.” Lost from Baghpat in 2019, but had we fought this time we would have won.”

Jayant Chaudhary has decided to give the Baghpat seat to his close confidant Raj Kumar Sangwan, 68, who has been associated with RLD for almost four decades. Sangwan is pitted against Amarpal Sharma, a Brahmin, who had earlier contested the assembly elections from Sahibabad on a BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party) ticket and won.

The SP leader wanted to play the Jat card, but just a day before the closing of nominations, he chose the Brahmin card. It is a mystery why Sharma was brought in even though he was an accused in a murder case who is currently out on bail.

Sangwan is pointing to the humble beginnings of his career. ,I used to work in distributing papers, but now I am involved in filling papers. Post But I have come (I used to distribute slips, but now, I am in a position to fill them myself).”

Asked why his party did not form an alliance with SP, Sangwan chose a diplomatic answer. “The talks broke down because we did not agree with his views on certain issues,” although he failed to specify what they were.

Like Govil, he too has little support among BJP workers, who mostly remain absent from his meetings. And like Govil, he will have to look to Adityanath to boost his campaign. Here also a mythological connection has been found Mahabharata This time. It is believed that Baghpat is one of the five villages that the Pandavas asked from Duryodhana to avoid the battle of Kurukshetra, which Duryodhana refused to give. The symbolism of the story was lost on the crowd who had gathered to listen to Adityanath, but they were happy to know that their city enjoyed such ‘historical’ importance.

Whatever its historicity, the Jats of Baghpat are upset with the Modi government’s “harsh treatment” of the second round of farmers’ protests. “In February this year, when our farmers from Punjab tried to go to Delhi with their demands, the BJP government in Haryana welcomed them with tear gas shells and Did it with bullets.

In neighboring Ghaziabad, known as the gateway to Uttar Pradesh, there is a wave of anger against the BJP’s decision to choose Bania (trading community) candidate Atul Garg instead of a Rajput leader as per tradition. To reduce this resentment, Union Defense Minister Rajnath Singh was sent to Ghaziabad twice, which still persists.

Garg has been pitted against Congress candidate Dolly Sharma, who is a familiar figure locally. Sharma, an MBA, is also a Congress spokesperson who ran his own business before joining politics in 2017. She was fielded by the Congress in 2019 but lost to General VK Singh, who has been denied the ticket this time.

In nearby Gautam Buddh Nagar (Noida) there is once again a strong wave against BJP candidate Dr Mahesh Sharma, who won in 2014 and 2019, although villagers say they have never seen him in their constituency in 10 years Is. As fruit vendor Ram Pratap Singh sarcastically says, “Every year, Mahesh Sharma starts a new hospital at some place or the other, where does he have time to live with us poor villagers?”

His rival, SP candidate Rahul Awana, has been highlighting the issues affecting farmers of Noida and Greater Noida, who have allegedly not received adequate compensation for the land sold. Awana claims, “The youth are roaming unemployed and the flat buyers of Noida are helpless in the face of the arbitrary behavior of the builders.”

A large number of voters say Awana was brought in at the last minute to replace former Congress leader Mahendra Singh Nagar, whose candidature was announced by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav on March 16. Nagar had also started his election campaign, but the local party cadre had objected to fielding a Congress leader, and hence his nomination was cancelled.

BSP candidate Nandkishore Pundhir, a Rajput, may spoil the game by dividing Dalit and Muslim votes, even if he succeeds in garnering support from the Rajput community.

In Mathura, former silver screen star Hema Malini, who is the BJP candidate for the third consecutive time, is facing off against Congress’s Mukesh Dhangar and BSP’s Suresh Singh. But Bollywood stars are not popular in Mathura. As a political observer said, “He has direct access to both PM Modi and Amit Shah, and that is the main reason why he has been nominated. Though we all know that he is hardly present here and he has done the same for Mathura.” Very little has been done and even very little has been done for Vrindavan.” ,

,

Jat resentment against the BJP has intensified in Rajasthan’s Shekhawati region – which includes the parliamentary seats of Jhunjhunu, Churu, Sikar and Nagaur – and may spread to other parts of the state. The powerful Jat lobby has accused the Center of sidelining them and not giving them adequate representation in these elections.

For example, he points out how, three months before the assembly elections in November 2023, the BJP appointed Brahmin leader and Chittorgarh MP CP Joshi as its party chief, replacing Jat leader Satish Poonia. In December, following the BJP’s victory in the assembly elections, the party appointed RSS’s Bhajanlal Sharma as the state’s first Brahmin chief minister since 1990.

Jat leader and two-time Churu MP Rahul Kaswan, a loyalist of senior BJP leader and former chief minister Vijaya Raje Scindia, joined the Congress this year after the BJP denied him an assembly ticket from his family bastion Churu.

There will also be some other major matches in the second round. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, who is contesting elections from Kota-Bundi for the third consecutive time, is facing tough opposition from Congress’s Prahlad Gunjal.

There is a triangular contest in Barmer, where independent candidate Ravinder Singh Bhati is giving a tough fight to BJP’s sitting MP Kailash Chaudhary and Congress’s Umedha Ram Beniwal, who recently joined the Congress from the Rashtriya Loktantrik Party.

Another battleground is the Banswara (reserved) constituency, where the Congress has thrown its weight behind Bharatiya Tribal Party’s Rajkumar Roat against BJP’s Mahendrajit Singh Malviya.

Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, who is also contesting elections for the third consecutive time, faces a tough challenge in Jodhpur as Congress has fielded Sachin Pilot loyalist and Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary Karan Singh Uchiarda against him. Is. Uchiarda’s philanthropic activities during the pandemic, including setting up a huge kitchen to provide food, have strengthened his image.