The Bahujan Samaj Party voters are likely to play a key role in deciding the winner in the Mainpuri bypoll, where former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple Yadav and Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Raghuraj Shakya are in a direct fight.
Dimple Yadav is trying to save her father-in-law Mulayam Singh Yadav’s bastion while the BJP is making efforts to wrest the constituency from the SP as it did in Azamgarh recently where SP, which was trying to save Akhilesh Yadav’s parliament constituency, faced a humiliating defeat.
“This (Mainpuri) is the Lok Sabha constituency where Mayawati’s BSP vote bank will decide who will become the Member of Parliament in the fight between BJP and SP. Actually, in Mainpuri more than 1.25 lakh votes belong to the Jatav community and more than 70,000 votes belong to different castes including Katheria,” a political analyst pointed out.
As per the experts, with Mayawati’s BSP not participating in the bypoll, the party supporters have the option to cast their vote for other candidates, and in such circumstances both SP and BJP face the challenge of wooing the core vote bank of the BSP.
In the last election in Azamgarh too, as per the experts, the BSP’s vote bank played a key role in the final election results. The BSP candidate got over two lakhs votes in Azamgarh ensuring the defeat of SP and a victory of BJP in a triangular fight. In Mainpuri, after the demise of the SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav who represented the seat in Lok Sabha constituency, the party has been receiving a lot of sympathy.
Mainpuri has been a stronghold of the SP and the party has fielded Dimple Yadav from there to save Mulayam Sing Yadav’s legacy. Shivpal Singh Yadav, younger brother of late Mulayam Singh Yadav, addressed an election rally in support of Dimple Yadav in Jaswantnagar assembly constituency ahead of the polling.
While Mainpuri is a bastion of SP, the BJP, which is running the government in the state and at the Centre, has been campaigning vigorously for the seat. Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya joined BJP candidate Raghuraj Shakya during a roadshow in Barnahal town. Maurya hit out at Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle Shivpal Yadav saying that both were in a state of panic due to the fear of defeat.
Maurya said the people of Rampur were defeating Azam Khan and the people of Mainpuri were defeating Dimple Yadav by making Raghuraj Shakya victorious. He said people were working for the path of development and to end hooliganism in Mainpuri.
Even Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath campaigned in Mainpuri terming Shivpal a `pendulum’ and pointing to the differences between Akhilesh and his uncle. Interestingly the SP too fears a `defeat’ as it has alleged that the BJP is using official machinery to ensure defeat of the SP candidate. The SP has filed a complaint in this regard with the Election Commission of India.