Lucknow: As Bijnor MP Malook Nagar became the latest MP to part ways with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the rival camps of the NDA and INDIA are taking advantage of the exodus to the hilt in Uttar Pradesh to meet their ends in the Lok Sabha polls.
While MPs Ritesh Pandey (Ambedkar Nagar) and Sangeeta Azad (Lalganj) joined the BJP, Nagar joined the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), an NDA constituent, Thursday. This was after the BSP replaced Nagar with Chaudhary Bijendra Singh, a defector from the Lok Dal, in Bijnor.
Two-time MP from Ghazipur and gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari’s brother Afzal Ansari, meanwhile, is already campaigning in his constituency as the candidate of the Samajwadi Party (SP).
Adding to the exodus list are BSP‘s expelled MPs — Amroha’s Danish Ali and Shravasti’s Ram Shiromani Verma — who have joined the INDIA constituents, the Congress and the Samajwadi Party.
Like Afzal Ansari, Danish Ali is also out on the campaign trail as the Congress candidate in Amroha. Verma meanwhile has been declared by the SP as its candidate from Shravasti. Expelled for anti-party activities on 23 March, Verma earlier admitted that he was “looking for an alternative.”
On Thursday, Nagar was made the national general secretary of the RLD, barely hours after he joined the party.
In a letter to BSP chief Mayawati, Nagar mentioned that over the past 39 years, his family members served as block heads, MLAs, MLCs, chairperson of district corporations, district panchayat presidents, ministers and MPs. It was the first time that none were contesting either in the assembly or the Lok Sabha polls, he added.
“We joined the party in 2006 and served in different positions, thanks to your blessings, for which we will always be grateful. There is no leader commanding my political and social standing on national level and recognition, who has stayed with the party for so long,” he wrote.
He later said that he served in the party for the past 18 years and swallowed bitter pills several times when he was “denied a ticket from MLA, MP and was excluded from the list of star campaigners.”
As Nagar is a Gurjar and an influential businessman in western Uttar Pradesh, the NDA has already assigned him with campaign duties to woo the Gurjars in favour of its candidates.
With Rajputs agitating against the BJP over the Samrat Mihir Bhoj row, the NDA will utilise Nagar to woo the Gurjars, sources in the BJP-led alliance said.
On his part, Nagar told ThePrint that he would take the NDA’s message to 14 crore Gurjars across the country. The Gurjar leader added that while he addressed rallies in Nagina and Mathura, a gathering next in Bijnor was in the pipeline.
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Sangeeta Azad, Pandey to boost NDA prospects
The BJP has given the poll ticket to Ritesh Pandey in Ambedkar Nagar. But in Lalganj, the BJP shrewdly deployed Sangeeta Azad to make the road smoother for its candidate Neelam Sonkar. Sangeeta had defeated Neelam in 2019.
“Sangeeta and her husband (Azad Ari Mardan) have joined the BJP, but they were working for the party for the past two years. She is the daughter-in-law of BSP veteran Gandhi Azad, a founding BSP member who commands great respect. The BJP has won the seat (Lalganj) only once in 2014 during the Modi wave; Sangeeta’s switch will help the party,” a BJP leader from Lalganj told ThePrint.
Mardan told ThePrint that the couple was impressed by the policies of PM Narendra Modi whom the ex-MLA described as the “second Kanshi Ram and someone who has God’s hand over his head”.
Admitting that they had worked for the BJP for the past two years, Mardan said that he holds much respect for Mayawati but added that she has greatly cut down political activity due to her advanced age.
In the opposition camp, Danish Ali and Afzal Ansari are the Congress and the SP candidates in Amroha and Ghazipur, respectively.
Ali was suspended a day after he spoke in support of Trinamool’s Mahua Moitra in the cash-for-query controversy. On the other hand, Afzal Ansari had a quiet exit from the BSP.
Gopal Yadav, Ghazipur unit district president of SP, confirmed to ThePrint that Ansari has joined the Akhilesh Yadav-led party. Last month, BSP state president Vishwanath Pal told ThePrint that without resigning, it was not possible that a leader can be declared as an official candidate from another party.
An SP leader from Ghazipur told ThePrint that Ansari’s switch is a major loss to the BSP since the Ansaris have influence over at least two seats — Ghazipur and Ghosi — in Purvanchal.
Moreover, there is a sympathy wave not just limited to these two seats after the death of Mukhtar Ansari, he added. “There is anger among the Muslims over Mukhtar’s death and its ripple effects will be felt in Ballia and partly in Varanasi. This will help us.”
Asked why the Ghazipur MP parted ways with the BSP, the SP functionary said that it was because the Ansari family wants to ensure the BJP’s defeat as well as due to Mayawati’s decision to stay out of the opposition bloc — a move that gives weightage to allegations of the BSP covertly helping the BJP.
Another BSP MP Haji Fazlur Rehman, too, could end up helping the INDIA bloc even as he has declared not to contest this time in Saharanpur. Rehman, who had declared that he would help anyone who defeats the BJP, met Congress candidate Imran Masood on Eid.
Asked if he would help BSP’s Majid Ali or Congress’s Masood, Rehman said that he would take a decision within the next two-three days.
Regarding the speculation that he may help the BSP candidate because Masood was his rival in 2019, Rehman said that while he was yet to take a decision, he would ensure that the BJP gets defeated in Saharanpur.
The BSP is holding onto only two of its sitting MPs, Jaunpur’s Shyam Singh Yadav and Nagina’s Girish Chandra Jatav, but the latter has been shifted to Bulandshahr. It is yet to declare a candidate in Jaunpur.
Even Shyam Singh Yadav has shown affinity to the INDIA constituents. He praised Rahul Gandhi in an interview to ThePrint after participating in the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in 2022. He had also joined the Congress leader and Akhilesh Yadav when the yatra reached Agra in February this year.
In Ghosi, the BSP has dropped its sitting MP Atul Rai, who remained in jail for most of his tenure. Balkrishna Chauhan was made the candidate there, less than a week after he returned to the BSP MP.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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