UP bypolls: With caste equations and SP’s ‘PDA’ formula in mind, BJP names 8 candidates
The BJP has picked OBC candidates for four of the nine UP Assembly seats where bypolls will be held on November 13. The Karhal Assembly seat will witness a contest between two members of Akhilesh Yadav’s family.
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In the Phulpur Assembly seat, the BJP has chosen former Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Deepak Patel as its candidate. (File Photo)The BJP on Thursday declared its candidates for eight out of nine Assembly seats that will go for bypolls in Uttar Pradesh on November 13, choosing OBC leaders in four seats and a member of Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav’s family in another.
With the Congress deciding to stay away, the bypolls to the Sisamau, Katehri, Kundarki, Karhal, Khair, Phulpur, Ghaziabad, Manjhwa and Meerapur seats will be a direct contest between the BJP and the SP. And keeping caste equations and the SP’s ‘PDA’ or “Pichde (backward classes or OBCs), Dalits, Alpasankhyak (minorities)” formula in mind, the BJP initially named four OBC, one Dalit, one Thakur and one Brahmin leader as its candidates. Even among its OBC candidates, the party has given due space to leaders from the Yadav, Maurya, Kurmi and Nishad communities.
The BJP has named Ramvir Singh Thakur from the Kundarki Assembly seat, Sanjeev Sharma from Ghaziabad, and Sunder Diler from the Khair reserved seat. For four other seats, i.e. Karhal, Phulpur, Katehri and Manjhwa, the BJP has picked OBC candidates Anujesh Yadav, Deepak Patel, Dharmraj Nishad, and Suchismita Maurya, respectively.
The Karhal Assembly seat, which Akhilesh Yadav vacated to retain his parliamentary constituency, will thus witness a contest between two members of his family, Anujesh Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav. Anujesh is the brother-in-law of Akhilesh’s cousin and SP MP Dharmendra Yadav. He had parted ways with the SP in 2017 and later joined the BJP. Tej Pratap, the SP’s candidate, is Akhilesh’s cousin.
Former BJP MLA Suchismita Maurya will contest from Manjhwa. Maurya’s father-in-law was also a former MLA from the seat. She could not contest in 2022 as the Manjhwa seat was given to alliance partner NISHAD Party. The NISHAD Party was seeking to contest this seat as its sitting MLA Vinod Nishad is now the BJP MP from Bhadohi.
In the Phulpur Assembly seat, the BJP has chosen former Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Deepak Patel as its candidate. A former MLA from the Karchana Assembly seat, Patel represents the Kurmi community and comes from a political family as his mother is a former MP from Phulpur.
In what is likely to come as a surprise to the NISHAD Party, the BJP has fielded a Nishad leader from Katehri too, another seat that the party was hoping to contest. The BJP chose former BSP MLA Dharmaraj Nishad, who had joined the saffron party before the 2022 Assembly elections, making it clear that instead of banking on regional parties, it is attempting to develop an OBC leadership within the party. In 2022, the BJP had given him a ticket to contest from Akbarpur but he lost the election. He is now hoping to win from Katehri, which has voters from the fishermen and boatmen communities.
In the lone reserved seat going for bye-election, Khair in Aligarh, the BJP has chosen Surendra Diler, the son of former Hathras MP Rajveer Diler. This will be his first contest.
In the two other seats, the BJP has chosen leaders from its cadre. Ramvir Singh, a Thakur leader who had unsuccessfully contested the 2012 and 2017 Assembly elections, has been picked to contest the Kundarki seat, which has significant Thakur and minority votes.
In the Ghaziabad Assembly seat, the BJP has fielded Rajiv Sharma, who has held several posts in the organisation for over past two decades and is being seen as a Brahmin face in this bye-election.
The BJP later declared Suresh Awasthi as its candidate for the Sishamau seat. He had earlier contested from the constituency in 2017 against then SP MLA Irfan Solanki and stood second.
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