Traditionally, the City South assembly seat of Allahabad seat has remained a bastion of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress and Socialist Party since KC Mohiley alias Chunnan Guru of Praja Socialist Party represented it from 1957 to 1969.
In this Assembly election, the BJP candidate Nand Gopal Gupta ‘Nandi’ is pitted against sitting MlA Haji Parvez Ahmad Tanki, who trounced Nandi by a wafer thin margin of 404 votes in 2012.
Parvez Ahmad Tanki is confident of his victory with Samajwadi Party along with Congress on his side.
However, another Muslim candidate Haji Mashooq Khan of BSP and Afzal Mujeeb of AIMIM are giving him sleepless night as they can divide his community votes and sink his electoral boat midway.
In 1969, Ram Gopal Sand won the seat on Bharatiya Jan Sangh ticket.
Senior Congress leader Satya Prakash Malviya won the seat in 1974 and 1977 on Bharatiya Kranti Dal and Janata Party ticket. The seat remained with the Congress from 1980 to 1989 with party leader Satish Jaiswal winning it twice in a row.
From 1989, the seat went into the kitty of the BJP with former UP Assembly Speaker and currently Governor of West Bengal Keshri Nath Tripathi emerging the winner five times in 1989, 1991, 1993, 1996 and 2002 Assembly elections.
Tripathi’s dominance ended in 2007 Assembly election by Nand Gopal Gupta ‘Nandi’ who went on to become a Minister in the Mayawati Government. Nandi staged a big upset by trouncing Tripathi with an impressive margin of 14,000 votes.
Taking into account the 2007 result, the City South assembly seat has earned the dubious distinction of “constituency of upsets” where the turn of tide can upset the aspirations of any party or candidate.
Nandi has time and again proven his mettle by rising like a phoenix from the ashes. After losing 2012 election by a whisker margin, he ensured victory of his wife Abhilasha Gupta in mayoral election by over 70,000 votes, and he garnered more than 1 lakh votes in 2014 parliamentary elections from Allahabad.
When others were battered and swept away by Modi wave and in 2017, Nandi bagged BJP ticket despite opposition from party cadre over awarding ticket to outsider.
Explaining the reason for Nandi’s victory, an old timer recalled, “During 2007 election, the business community, which accounts for more than 90,000 votes, voted en-block for Nandi whose vote share doubled since he also received a major chunk of Brahmin votes.”
An old timer Prabhu Narian Mishra said, “With the delimitation exercise, the seat’s basic character has changed. Earlier some villages in trans-Yamuna under Naini industrial belt also formed part of the seat. Moreover, the traditional culture, Chabootra Sanskriti (platform culture), has vanished as leaders are guided more by fulfilling the caste arithmetic rather than interacting with voters on a one to one basis.”
A senior Congress leader said, “This time also the constituency is going to witness a big upset as the least fancied candidate would emerge as the dark horse upsetting the table of fancied ones,”, and added: “But till then we must keep our fingers crossed.”