Takeaways from BSP LS list of 16: Mayawati hits refresh, potential to dent SP-Congress

The BSP contested nine of these seats in 2019, winning four – Saharanpur, Bijnor, Nagina and Amroha. The SP fielded candidates in the other five last time, winning three, while the RLD lost both the seats it contested. Here are the takeaways from the list:

Seven Muslim candidates

The BSP has fielded Muslim candidates in seven of the 16 seats, potentially creating a problem for the SP-Congress alliance, both of which are a part of the INDIA bloc and are hopeful of consolidating votes of the community against the BJP.

The party has fielded candidates from the minority community in Saharanpur, Moradabad, Rampur, Sambhal, Amroha, Aonla, and Pilibhit as these seats are seen to have a significant Dalit as well as Muslim population.

The Congress and SP too have fielded Muslim candidates in these seats. While former BSP leaders Imran Masood and Danish Ali (who was suspended by the BSP and is the sitting Amroha MP) have been fielded by the grand old party from Saharanpur and Amroha respectively, the SP has put up Zia ur Rahman Barq and Ikra Hasan from Sambhal and Kairana.

All new faces

The party has replaced candidates, including four sitting MPs, in all nine of these constituencies it contested in 2019. For instance, the party has replaced Haji Fazl ur Rehman with Majid Ali, an OBC Muslim and former zilla parishad chairperson, in Saharanpur. In Amroha, Ali has been replaced with Mujahid Hussian, a businessman and the husband of Dasna nagar panchayat chairperson Bage Jahan.

Nagina MP Girish Chandra Jatav has been shifted to Bulandshahr and replaced with Surender Pal Singh. In Bijnor, incumbent MP Malook Nagar has given way to Vijender Singh.

Sign of troubled times

The candidate list comes at a time when the BSP is facing an exodus of leaders, including sitting MPs. On Saturday, Shrawasti MP Ram Shiromani Verma was expelled from the party for “indiscipline and anti-party activities”. Last week, Lalganj MP Sangeeta Azad joined the BJP along with her husband and former MLA Azad Ari Mardan and BSP spokesperson Seema Kushwaha, who fought the Nirbhaya and Hathras rape cases in court.

Earlier this month, Ambedkar Nagar MP Ritesh Pandey switched to the BJP while Ghazipur MP Afzal Ansari joined the SP. Both of them are being fielded from their current seats by their new parties.

Unlike the past, when the BSP declared candidates months in advance to give them time to work on the ground and change them if it was found to be unsatisfactory, the party this time declared candidates after the nominations for the first phase began and well after the NDA and the Congress-SP alliance announced their contenders.

Subsequently, the party released another list of 9 more candidates, including two women. The BSP has replaced its candidates in four of these seats, which it contested in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and lost.

The party has fielded former MP Sarika Singh Baghel from Etawah and Pooja Amrohi from Agra. In Hathras, the Mayawati-led party has nominated software engineer-turned-politician Hembabu Dhangar.

Other candidates that the BSP has nominated include Kamalkant Upmanyu from Mathura, Ram Biwas Sharma from Fatehpur Sikri, Satyendra Jain Souli from Firozabad, Kuldeep Bhadoria from Kanpur, Rajesh Kumar Dwivedi from Akbarpur and Suresh Chandra Gautam from Jalaun.