Close to Siddiqui,far from people

Those in the know of things say T Ram was given a BSP ticket from Ajagara owing to his proximity with the powerful PWD Minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui,who handles party affairs in all the 85 reserved category assembly constituencies in UP.

T Ram retired from the PWD’s top post only a year ago. He was engineer-in-chief for more than eight years,which included the current tenure of Chief Minister Mayawati also; he was also given extension of service.

Ajagara,a new seat on the electoral map of UP after delimitation,covers a major part of the old Saidpur,which BSP candidate Dinanath Pandey could win in 2007 much due to Chief Minister Mayawati’s social engineering theory comprising Brahmin-Dalit combination.

Saidpur is now a reserved seat after the delimitation and the BSP has obliged the sitting MLA by fielding his son Manish Pandey from Jangipur in Ghazipur.

“The idea was that Pandey will attract Brahmin votes of new Ajagara seat for T Ram. So,it was being looked as a safe seat for the former engineer,” a source in the BSP said. “But,” added the source,“Pandey has not actively campaigned in Brahmin-dominated villages this time.”

“BSP’s only star campaigner and Rajya Sabha member Satish Mishra held a meeting in the Ajagara seat,” a BSP leader told The Indian Express.

The BSP team is now banking on the votes of most backward castes to better the vote count,he added.

T Ram’s candidature from Ajagara seat has given some grist to AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi who has a special focus on all reserved seats in UP. “T Ram and BSP are quite contrary to each other and the Congress is making Dalit voters aware about the BSP’s lost love for its hardcore cadres,” said Mohit Raghuvanshi,a Congress leader from Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh.

Under Rahul Gandhi’s “Mission 85”,the Congress has appointed Raghuvanshi as supervisor for the Ajagara reserved seat. Raghuvanshi,accompaned by Youth Congress leaders,has been visiting vilages where Dalit population is high.

The Congress has gone for an old war horse of BSP,Mewalal Baghi,who was the BSP MLA from Bhadohi seat in the early 1990s.

“While Baghiji touches old voters,particuarly the upper castes,T Ram finds it difficult to show regard for such voters with folded hands,” Shubham Singh,a Congress leader,said.

In all,T Ram faces a tough battle in a seat that was considered safe by his new political boss,Siddiqui.

Another BSP veteran,Sant Ram Sant,who was in the race for BSP ticket from Ajagara,has jumped in the fray as a nominee of Apna Dal from the seat. “He presents himself before the Dalit voters as a victim. He,too,is expected to damage the BSP’s Dalit votebank to some extent,” a tea stall owner Rameshwar said in Aayar Bazar.

BJP has fielded Harinath Sonar while the SP candidate is Lalji Sonkar who may put up a good fight given the chances of consolidation of anti-incumbency votes in his favour. “MBCs will prefer the SP man,” one Dhaneshwar Prajapati said at Dhasauna Bazar.