Smarting from the poll debacle in by election to Ghosi assembly seat, the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party president Om Prakash Rajbhar has said his party will also contest a couple of  Lok Sabha seats in Bihar. SBSP is an ally of the BJP.
Dara Singh Chauhan, a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate from Ghosi lost to Sudhakar Singh of Samajwadi party and results were declared on September 8. Rajbhar had boasted that he would ensure the victory of the BJP candidate as the Rajbhar community was solidly behind the BJP.
However, BJP suffered a crushing defeat, which triggered a series of attacks on Rajbhar.
He is particularly targeted by the Samajwadi Party. However, Rajbhar is putting up a brave front  and asserting that he along with Dara Singh Chauhan will soon be inducted in Yogi Adityanath Cabinet.
“My party fulfilled its responsibility  for the victory of the BJP candidate. Dara Singh Chauhan’s outsider status hurt his candidature. The SBSP campaigned for Dara Singh Chauhan with complete dedication and succeeded in transferring Rajbhar votes to him. Chauhan got over 90 per cent of Rajbhar votes. But he lost because there was public sentiment against him and the Opposition succeeded in cashing in on the ‘local versus outsider’ factor”, Rajbhar said.
He  further said that the election had become Dara Singh versus Sudhakar. Even Dalits, in the BSP’s absence, voted for Sudhakar because he was a local.
“Had the BJP fielded a local candidate, he would have won by a huge margin,” he said.
The defeat of the BJP candidate in Ghosi assembly by poll has predictably compromised the bargaining power of  its allies particularly OP Rajbhar, ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The Samajwadi Party pulled off a resounding victory with its candidate Sudhakar Singh trouncing the BJP candidate and OBCs leader Dara Singh Chauhan  by over 42,000 votes, polling 57.2 per cent votes  against Chauhan’s  37.5 per cent.
Rajbhar with an obvious aim of mounting pressure on the BJP has upped the ante claiming that his party would also contest two  Lok Sabha seats in Bihar. SBSP has intensified its activities in Bihar  and so far  the party has organised political rallies in 26 districts.
Rajbhar said his party would challenge the Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in alliance with the NDA. Recently SBSP organised a rally in Nawada district of Bihar where people from the disadvantaged sections of society were mobilised. SBSP will organise similar rallies  in Gaya and Bhojpur on 16th and 19th September. Then on October 10, he will hold a big public meeting at Gandhi Maidan in Patna, the capital of Bihar.
In the 2022 Assembly elections, Chauhan had won the Ghosi seat as an SP candidate, with 1.1 lakh votes or 42.2 per cent of the total votes. At the time, Rajbhar was also allied with the SP.  After 16 months of last UP assembly elections , Chauhan has now lost the same seat as a BJP  candidate backed by the party’s National Democratic Alliance (NDA) allies like the SBSP.
The SP’s candidate Sudhakar, who belongs to the upper caste Rajput community, got 1.2 lakh votes in the bypoll — about 16,000 more votes than Chauhan’s tally as an SP candidate in the 2022 Assembly election. Chauhan could poll only 81,668 votes this time.
In July this year, the BJP  had  reinducted Dara Singh Chauhan after he resigned from the Samajwadi party. The SBSP, too, had joined the NDA at the same time amid much hype. The BJP  decided to ally with the SBSP following a survey that found Rajbhar’s party could help the party win 12  Lok Sabha  seats in eastern UP, including Ghosi.