Prestige of three Union ministers will be at stake in the first phase election to eight parliamentary constituencies in western UP that go to polls on April 11, as caste arithmetic is in favour of the SP-BSP-RLD alliance which is ready to upset the applecart of the ruling BJP in Uttar Pradesh.
The three Union Ministers in the fray are General (Retired) VK Singh (Ghaziabad), Mahesh Sharma (Gautam Buddha Nagar) and Satyapal Singh (Baghpat).
RLD chief Ajit Singh and his son Jayant Chaudhary are also fighting to sustain the legacy of late Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh and both are in direct contest with the BJP, with a Jat versus Jat fight in their constituencies.
Congress, which is contesting six seats in this region, has not fielded candidates against Ajit Singh in Muzaffarnagar and Jayant Chaudhary in Baghpat.
The BJP is banking on the loyalty of the upper caste voters, who have traditionally supported it. The party has fielded four upper caste candidates in this phase — VK Singh, Mahesh Sharma, Raghav Lakhanpal (Saharanpur) and Rajendra Agarwal (Meerut).
The non-upper caste Hindus are the most sought after vote bank for both the BJP and the Opposition alliance. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election and the 2017 UP Assembly poll, a large section of this base had shifted to the BJP. Jats and Gujjars make up most of the OBC population in these constituencies — on an average, over 20 per cent.
According to data, the Gujjars and Jats constitute 38 per cent of the population in Baghpat, with the latter making up 23.8 per cent of it. Jats also make up 12 per cent of the population in Muzaffarnagar and 10.8 per cent in Bijnor.
While the Jats are concentrated in a few constituencies in this region, the Gujjar population is evenly scattered — around seven per cent in Kairana, 6.5 per cent in Gautam Buddha Nagar, 5.5 per cent each in Meerut, Saharanpur and Ghaziabad, and six per cent in Bijnor.
The Muslim vote bank, around 38 per cent in Saharanpur, stands a chance of getting divided between Congress’ Imran Masood and alliance candidate Hazi Fazlur Rehman, fighting on a BSP ticket. Masood was runner-up in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
Muslims make up 32 per cent of the vote bank in Bijnor, 31 per cent each in Meerut and Muzaffarnagar, 26 per cent in Kairana, 20 per cent in Baghpat, 18.5 per cent in Ghaziabad, and roughly 14 per cent in GB Nagar.
The Scheduled Castes in the region comprise Chamar or Jatav community. They range from nine per cent in Kairana to nearly 17 per cent of the total 20 per cent Dalits in Saharanpur.
Traditionally, this section has voted for the BSP. But, the BJP has made a big dent in this segment in the 2014 parliamentary and 2017 assembly polls.
In Baghpat and Muzaffarnagar, the Jat-OBC factor will be the most decisive one. Ajit Singh, a Jat by caste, is the alliance candidate from Muzaffarnagar and will be up against BJP MP Sanjeev Baliyan, who is a prominent Jat leader. Jayant Chaudhary is the alliance candidate from Baghpat and will fight against another Jat, Union Minister Satyapal Singh.
In Meerut, the opposition alliance has fielded Haji Yakoob Qureshi. While the sitting BJP MP can expect 25 per cent of the upper caste votes, the winning candidate will have to get a bigger chunk of OBC and Dalit votes (14 per cent-plus Chamar vote in this segment).
In GB Nagar and Ghaziabad, the OBC-Dalit combination will play a decisive role as well. Although the alliance has not fielded well-known faces from these seats, the caste and political equation will matter the most.
