After alliance with Rajbhar, Dara Singh Chauhan, BJP firms up its east UP position

On July 7, the PM flagged-off two Vande Bharat Express trains from Gorakhpur railway station. He also addressed the closing ceremony of the centenary celebrations of the Gita Press in the city. The same day, he also inaugurated and laid the foundation stones of a raft of developmental projects worth over Rs 12,100 crore in Varanasi, and interacted with grassroots BJP workers in both places.

Chauhan, a Samajwadi Party (SP) MLA, resigned from his Assembly membership on Saturday to join the BJP on Monday at the party’s state headquarters. The ceremony was organised in a grand hall in the presence of state president Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary and both deputy chief ministers, Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak. Chauhan’s supporters were also invited to the packed hall.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah with OBC leader Om Prakash Rajbhar. (Photo: Om Prakash Rajbhar/ Twitter)

Voters of Chauhan, a Nonia (a most backward caste or MBC), are spread across eastern UP in Lok Sabha seats like Ghosi, Azamgarh, Ghazipur, Ballia, Chandauli, as well as adjoining regions of Bihar.

In between on Sunday, SBSP president O P Rajbhar announced he was returning to the NDA. The BJP had renewed contact with Rajbhar almost a year ago, given their assessment that he wields influence over various OBC castes in eastern UP and can help them win at least a dozen Lok Sabha seats there. Rajbhar, though, claims there are 32 Lok Sabha seats in eastern UP where the SBSP alone can’t win, but its support can carry bigger parties across the finishing line. To underline his point, he took out a month-long ‘Savdhan Rath Yatra’ through UP and Bihar last year.

The BJP already has the Apna Dal (S) and Nishad Party as allies in the area, both of which have influence over different OBC castes. On July 2, when Apna Dal (S) celebrated the birth anniversary of founder and late Kurmi leader Dr Sonelal Patel, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, CM Yogi Adityanath, BJP state president Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary and over a dozen state Cabinet ministers were present on stage in Lucknow.

Sonelal’s daughter Anupriya Patel, who is the current president of Apna Dal (S), is the MP from Mirzapur — a seat in eastern UP — and is also the Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry.

Eastern UP is a cause of concern for the BJP as it sees the state as its launchpad for its national ambitions, making its recent electoral returns from the region a cause of concern.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, out of 26 Lok Sabha seats in eastern UP, the BJP had won 24, while its ally Apna Dal (S) had won one, leaving only Azamgarh to the SP. But in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, when the SP and the BSP had come together, the BJP could win only 17 seats, with ally Apna Dal (S) winning two, leaving them with 19 in total in the region. Meanwhile, the BSP won six seats in eastern UP, though the SP again returned only one seat — Azamgarh.

Meanwhile, in the state Assembly polls, the BJP in 2017 won 90 out of the 130 assembly segments in the region, with Apna Dal returning five and the SBSP, which was then an ally, winning four — a total of 99. Among the Opposition, both the SP and the BSP had won 14 seats each, whereas the Nishad Party and the Congress had won one each, with another seat going to an Independent. But in 2022, the BJP-led alliance received a setback against the alliance led by the SP with smaller OBC parties. While Rajbhar’s SBSP had struck an alliance with the SP, other OBC leaders like Chauhan and Swami Prasad Maurya had merged into the SP. Although the BJP-led alliance still won a majority in the region with 79 seats, its tally had come down to 68, while the SP returned a respectable 43 seats, with its alliance winning 49 in the region.

A closer look reveals that from all five Assembly segments in Basti Lok Sabha constituency that BJP had won in 2017, its tally had come down to just one in 2022. Of the five Assembly segments under the Ballia Lok Sabha seat, the BJP had won four in 2017, with then ally SBSP winning the remaining one. By 2022, BJP could retain only one of these seats, with the SP winning three and its then ally, the SBSP winning another. Similarly, in the five Assembly segments under the Ghosi Lok Sabha seat — where Chauhan and Rajbhar are influential — the BJP had won three in 2017 and the BSP two. By 2022, the BJP could win only one seat, while SP won two and the SBSP one. The Rasara seat went to the BSP — its lone MLA in the 2022 UP Assembly. Elsewhere in eastern UP, the SP alliance had made a clean sweep on the assembly segments under the Lok Sabha seats of Azamgarh, Lalganj, Ambedkar Nagar and Ghazipur.