The SP-BSP bonhomie will be put to test again in the Kairana lok Sabha bypoll and may throw a stiff challenge to the BJP to prove its hold over voters in the Muslim-Jat-Gujjar dominated constituency which it had won in the 2014 general elections.
The contest in Kairana, which is going to polls on May 28, with three other lok Sabha seats — Bhandara-Gondiya and Palghar in Maharashtra and Nagaland — may provide a firm indication whether the SP-BSP combination will work again vis-à-vis the BJP in the 2019 lok Sabha polls. The BSP’s backing to its erstwhile arch rival SP candidates had brought shock defeats for BJP candidates in Gorakhpur and Phulpur in March this year.
The BJP is expected to field late party MP Hukum Singh’s daughter Mriganka Singh to take on the SP-BSP nominee. The BJP hopes that upper caste-Gujjar voters along with ‘the sympathy wave’ may sail through party’s boat. Singh, though, even with the backing of her father had lost Kairana Assembly constituency to the SP’s Nahid Hasan in the 2017 State Assembly elections when there was a Yadav-Muslim consolidation against her. Hukum Singh had won Kairana seat seven times before he became an MP from the seat in 2014.
Kairana in the west UP had come under focus close to the UP Assembly polls when Hukum Singh kicked up a controversy alleging that there was a migration of 346 Hindu families who were under threat from “one particular community”. He later sought to play down his own allegations in the State poll campaign even claiming that “Muslims have been voting for me”.
Since 1967, Kairana has elected 13 MPs out of them six were Jats and six Muslims with Hukum Singh being only Gujjar elected in 2014 on the BP ticket. The BJP has also since 1991 considered Jat candidates except that in the last lok Sabha poll. Though Mirganka could be the final choice of the party, another name floated around is that of a Jat Yatinder Chaudhary who had recently organised a ‘Yuva Mahasamellan’ in Shamli, an Assembly segment of Kairana lok Sabha seat. Chaudhary is also an advocate of the Supreme Court.
An effort is also on to bring a consensus and project Jat leader and Rashtriya lok Dal leader Ajit Singh’s son Jayant Chaudhary as joint-Opposition candidate to take on the BJP opponent in Kairana. Coming together of the SP-BSP and the RlD would minimise split of votes of major communities — Yadavs, SCs, Jats — respectively which swear allegiance to these parties.
Though there is no confirmation, a former BSP MP from Kairana Tabassum Begum who also happens to be the mother of the incumbent Kairana MlA, is also in the race from the constituency with the SP-BSP support.
Muslims constitute around 5 lakh voters, Jats 1.75 lakh, Scheduled Castes 2 lakh and Gujjars 1.2 lakh in Kairana’s voters profile that may look at SP-BSP-RlD candidate rather favourably.
Interestingly, the BJP presently has four MlAs out of the five Assembly segments in Kairana including Shamli and Thana Bhawan, represented by fiery Hindutva proponents Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana whose names had figured in the Muzaffarnagar riot cases. Som could be assigned an important role in the Kairana polls, according to BJP sources.
Bypoll is also to take place for the Noorpur Assembly seat in Bijnor district on May 28. last date for filing nomination is on May 10.