Even as the Smajwadi Party struggles to portray itself as a party pursuing inclusive politics, with the release of the list of 56 candidates for the eastern UP, the SP has affirmed that the party continues to rely on regional heavyweights across the board from the Other Backward Class communities.
The party has accommodated the upper caste Brahmins, many of them Bahujan Samaj Party turncoats, in its latest list of 56 candidates for eastern Uttar Pradesh.
At the centre of these efforts are Azamgarh and Ambedkar Nagar districts.
In Azamgarh, where the SP won five out of 10 seats in 2017, the party has retained four sitting MLAs, Alam Badi, Sangram Yadav, Nafees Ahmad and Durga Prasad Yadav. Three other candidates from the district are former Lok Sabha MP and Yadav strongman Ramakant Yadav, who is contesting from Phulpur Powai; Kamlakant Rajbhar, son of former BSP leader and ex-speaker of UP Assembly late Sukhdev Rajbhar, from Didarganj, and Bechai Saroj, former MLA has been repeated for Lalganj. Nominees for three other seats are yet to be announced.
In neighbouring Ambedkar Nagar, a traditional BSP bastion, the SP has an equally solid line-up of candidates: senior OBC leaders and sitting MLAs Lalji Verma in Katehari and Ram Achal Rajbhar in Akbarpur; senior Jatav leader and former MP Tribhuvan Dutt in Alapur and Rakesh Pandey, father of BSP MP Ritesh Pandey, from Jalalpur. Verma, Rajbhar and Tribhuvan Dutt had long association with the BSP before they switched to the SP. Rakesh Pandey’s son Ritesh was the MLA from Jalalpur before he contested the 2019 Lok Sabha and became an MP. The senior Pandey is also a former MP and a prominent Brahmin face in the region.
In Mau district, SP has fielded Dara Singh Chauhan, from Ghosi assembly seat who quit as cabinet minister recently. Dara Singh Chauhan, a BSP leader, had switched to the BJP in 2017 and contested from Madhuban, before moving to the SP recently.
In Gorakhpur, the bastion of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the SP has named candidates on seven seats. These include Vinay Shankar Tiwari, the sitting BSP MLA from Chillupar and son of Brahmin strongman Hari Shankar Tiwari, who is often considered a challenger to Adityanath. The SP is, however, yet to name a candidate to take on Yogi Adityanath in Gorakhpur Sadar.
The SP’s fresh list also includes Kajal Nishad, the Bhojpuri actress, who will contest from Campiyarganj in Gorakhpur while Amrendra Nishad, the son of Nishad stalwart Jamuna Prasad Nishad, has been fielded again from Pipraich in the same district.
Former U.P. Assembly Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey will contest from Itwa in Siddharthnagar, while another Brahmin leader Brahma Shankar Tripathi will fight from Pathardeva in Deoria. Both are expected to take on incumbent ministers in the U.P. government.
Former MP Daud Ahmad (Mohammadi in Lakhimpur Kheri), former BSP MLA Puja Pal (Chail in Kausambhi), sitting BSP MLA from Prayagraj Murtaza Siddiqui, Rakesh Verma (Kursi in Barabanki), the son of senior Kurmi leader Beni Prasad Verma who died last year, former MP Tufani Saroj (Kerakat in Jaunpur) and Yadav heavyweights Shailendra Yadav Lalai (Shahganj) and Ramgovind Chaudhary (Ballia), the leader of the Opposition also figure in the latest list. Former minister Om Prakash Singh will contest from Zamania in Ghazipur.