Once bitten, twice shy. The axiom seems to have left a lasting impression on the Bharatiya Janata Party for it is treading cautiously and is likely to field a candidate from the OBC Nishad caste from Gorakhpur after losing the bypoll to this key Lok Sabha seat in March 2018.
Learning from the defeat of its candidate Upendra Shukla in the 2018 bypoll to Gorakhpur parliamentary seat in which the Bahujan Samaj Party backed Samajwadi Party candidate Praveen Nishad romped home, the BJP is likely to make it a Nishad versus Nishad contest in this constituency in which the Nishad caste vote share is over 3.5 lakh.
The BJP is likely to field Amrendra Nishad from Gorakhpur. He is the son of former minister Jamuna Prasad Nishad. Amrendra recently resigned from Samajwadi Party to join the BJP.
While parting ways with the SP, Amrendra had said, “I have joined the BJP to realise the dream of my late father Jamuna Prasad Nishad. I would soon seek blessings of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and work as per his directions.”
The BJP is all the more compelled to field a Nishad candidate as it is anxious to retain its base among the Most Backward Classes (MBC) and prevent consolidation of electorally significant Nishad community behind the formidable BSP-SP combine.
The Samajwadi Party has raised the bar for the BJP as it is likely to field Sanjay Nishad from Maharajganj Lok Sabha constituency near Gorakhpur. Sanjay is the chief of Nishad Party and is the father of present MP from Gorakhpur, Praveen Nishad.
Gorakhpur Lok Sabha constituency has been a traditional seat of the BJP and its candidate have represented it seven times consecutively since 1991 — twice by Mahant Avaidyanath and later five times by his disciple Yogi Adityanath, the present Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.
In the 16 elections to the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat since 1952, the BJP won seven times and the Congress six. The seat was won twice by Independents and once by Hindu Mahasabha.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha poll, Yogi Adityanath had retained the seat as a BJP candidate by polling 5.39 lakh votes, defeating his nearest Samajwadi Party rival Rajmati Nishad who polled 2.26 lakh votes.
But after Yogi took over as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in March 2017 and was later elected to the Legislative Council, the seat fell vacant. In the 2018 bypoll, Praveen Nishad of Nishad Party contested on SP ticket with the backing of BSP and defeated BJP candidate Upendra Shukla.