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Journalism of Courage
Esar Rizvi, 32, and friend Mohammad Faizuddin, 34, have devised a test to determine whom to vote for this time in the Firozabad Lok Sabha seat. They are making rounds of the election offices of both the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), located 300 metres apart in Firozabad town, to see “which party treats us, and hence Muslim voters, better”.
At the BSP office, the two are leaving when candidate Chowdhary Basheer arrives, and appeals to both friends to vote for him.
Basheer’s rival and the SP candidate is a nephew of the late Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akshaya Yadav.
In the internecine battle within the Mulayam family, Akshaya’s father Ram Gopal Yadav has mostly been at odds with his powerful cousin and Mulayam’s brother Shivpal Yadav. Now, with Mulayam having passed away and with the SP battling a powerful BJP, the family has forged a tentative peace. This, at the cost of fielding as many as five family members in the Lok Sabha polls – including SP chief Akhilesh and wife Dimple, Akhilesh’s cousin Dharmendra Yadav, and Akshaya and Shivpal’s son Aditya.
If a win for Akshaya in Firozabad is crucial for Ram Gopal, who is not really a grassroots man, to retain his footing in the party, Shivpal has staked all on Aditya’s fight in Badaun, having forced the party to drop him as candidate and give the ticket to his son.
Both the seats vote on May 7.
There is another undercurrent to the contest in this traditional SP bastion. In 2019, when Akshaya contested from Firozabad, he had lost to the BJP after a rebellious Shivpal joined the fray as a nominee of his short-lived Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party Lohia (PSP-L). In 2022, the PSP-L merged with the SP.
Ram Gopal has parked himself in Firozabad to ensure Akshaya, 37, faces no hurdles this time.
Unlike Rizvi, fellow bangle manufacturer Anwar says his mind is made. “The BSP’s Muslim candidate may get some votes of the community, but a majority will support the SP to defeat the BJP.”
The SP election office in-charge in Firozabad Sadar Assembly area, Shaikh Zubair Khan, says: “Last time we lost because chacha (Shivpal) spoiled our chance. This time he is with us. So we are sure of winning. The Muslim votes will not split.”
Firozabad is often referred to as the ‘Glass City of India’ due to its small units manufacturing bangles and other items made of glass.
The BJP has changed its candidate in the Firozabad parliamentary seat, dropping sitting MP Chandra Sen Jadon for another Thakur, Vishwadeep Singh.
In 2014, when Akshaya had won from Firozabad, Vishwadeep contested on the BSP ticket and finished third.
BJP Firozabad district spokesperson Vijay Singh says the party is confident of a repeat of 2019, “because of beneficiaries of welfare schemes like PM Awas Yojana, Ayushman and free rations”. The area’s glass industry is also happy with the improved law and order under the Yogi Adityanath government in the state, he says.
Among the Yadavs, the BJP is expecting a split due to prominent SP leader Hariom Yadav, another relative of Mulayam, crossing over to the party. The BJP Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Mohan Yadav, the party’s most prominent Yadav face, has come campaigning.
Of Firozabad’s voters, Yadavs form the largest chunk at about 4.5 lakh, followed by Muslims and Thakurs in equal numbers at 2 lakh. There are around 2.5 lakh more upper castes, 1 lakh Rathores (Teli-OBCs) and other OBCs and Dalits in smaller numbers.
This means that the BJP has as much of a chance in Firozabad as the SP when it comes to traditional vote banks, apart from the support it enjoys among the non-Yadav OBCs.
In the 2022 Assembly polls, of the five Assembly segments in the Firozabad Lok Sabha seat, the SP had won three and the BJP two.
However, the BSP is gambling on the caste dynamics as well. Basheer, who is covering the constituency on a motorcycle with a retinue of young Muslim workers, says his focus is not just the community but also development and “bhaichara (brotherhood)”.
In 2019, Basheer, a leather businessman, had contested as an Independent from Firozabad and got 0.24% of the votes.
“I am appealing to voters of all religions and castes,” he tells The Indian Express, adding: “The Saifai Parivar does not own the theka (sole custody) of minority votes.” It is a reference to the Mulayam family, after their native village Saifai, and a strike at the chink in the SP armour – the fact that it keeps nominating family members. “Why has no other Yadav or any Muslim worker got the SP ticket from Firozabad?” Basheer asks.
What he is also banking on is that a majority of the Dalits in Firozabad are Jatavs, a traditional BSP base.
Near Panchawan Chauraha in the Tundla Assembly area, the BSP government led by Mayawati (2007-2012) had built housing units for the poor – a fact its supporters have not forgotten. “We got a free house, with free electricity connection. Roads were built. But since then, no government has taken care of this locality,” says Shalini.
On the Opposition’s allegation that the BJP will change the Constitution, and that this would impact the backwards the most, Sanjay Kumar, a barber, who is also a beneficiary of the housing scheme, says: “Main nahin maanta ki koi bhi party samvidhan badalne ki koshish bhi karegi (I don’t think any party will even make such an attempt).”
Given Shivpal’s barely repressed battle of one upmanship with nephew Akhilesh, it is seen as significant that the uncle got his way in this seat, one of the strongest bastions of the party.
Particularly when the SP is seeking to put behind 2019, when for the first time after 1991, it had lost Badaun to the BJP. Now, after the support orchestrated by Shivpal for his son, Aditya, 35, is making his debut from the constituency.
Ram Prakash Yadav, a resident of Shahjahanabad Danda village in Gunnaur Nagar Panchayat, falling under Budaun, best exemplifies what the family means for the constituency and vice-a-versa. An RSS worker since he was a youth, the 65-year-old admires Mulayam for his “achievements”, in “uplifting the Yadavs”, “nurturing the area”, and for being a “zameeni neta (grassroots leader)”. “Voh vakai mein Netaji thay, Akhilesh mein voh baat nahin hai (He was a real leader, Akhilesh is no match),” says Ram Prasad.
In 2019, the BJP’s Sanghamitra Maurya had defeated Mulayam’s nephew Dharmendra, a two-time MP from Badaun, by 18,500 votes. (Dharmendra is contesting from Azamgarh, another SP stronghold, this time.) In the 2022 elections, of the five Assembly segments falling under Badaun, the BJP had won two and the SP three.
If Shivpal, whose hold on the grassroots is uncontested, has himself taken charge of Badaun for this election, the BJP is also leaving no stone unturned to retain the Yadav bastion. Adityanath has campaigned here, as has BJP Madhya Pradesh CM Mohan Yadav.
The BJP has also ditched its sitting MP Sanghmitra, the daughter of influential OBC leader Swami Prasad Maurya, for another OBC leader, Durvijay Singh Shakya, the BJP’s Braj area chief. Like Aditya, it is Shakya’s first election.
Giving the SP some jitters is the BSP’s decision to field a Muslim, Hazi Muslim Khan, who has some base in the area. In 2007, Khan had won from a nearby Assembly seat as a BSP candidate.
If the SP is hoping that, apart from the Yadavs, the Muslims will stay with it, the BJP is reaching out to other OBCs, talking of Modi’s welfare schemes, the “fall in crime rate” under Adityanath, and the Ram Temple.
Of the 20.07 lakh voters in the Budaun seat, Yadavs are the most numerous, at 4.2 lakh, followed by 3.8 lakh Muslims, 2 lakh Mauryas, 2.5 lakh SCs, and 2.7 lakh upper castes.
Jaiveer Yadav, 55, a labourer, from village Itauva, is conflicted. He recalls with nostalgia the first time Mulayam visited the area around a decade ago. “He was mobbed. He had no security but there was not a scratch on him.” He feels Akhilesh “does not care about this area” while the Adityanath government has controlled crime. However, Jaiveer says, people are angry with BJP MP Sanghmitra.
The SP’s Gunnaur MLA, Ramkhiladi Singh Yadav, says in 2019, the Yadavs were swept up in the BJP wave and the euphoria built around the then new Adityanath government. “Now, they have seen the reality… They will not go anywhere else,” he tells The Indian Express.
SP national spokesperson Bhuvan Bhaskar Joshi says: “All the Yadav votes will come to us because they want change.”
Umesh Kumar Yadav, a BJP supporter and the pradhan of Shahjahanabad Danda village, also admits things have changed. When he seeks Yadav votes for the BJP, Umesh says, “log gusse waali nazar se dekhte hain (people respond with anger)”. “If 30% of the voters shifted to the BJP last time, it will be less than 15% this time,” Umesh estimates.
At a meeting with village workers ahead of an upcoming Akhilesh rally, Amit Yadav, the SP’s Gannaur Assembly seat in-charge, tells them to not be afraid of “legal action” in taking on the BJP, promising to fight for them “till the Supreme Court”.
“Yeh chunaav Netaji ko shraddhanjali hogi (This election is our homage to Mulayam ji). We need 10 people on every booth to ensure that our every vote is cast on time. If you see any wrongdoing, immediately inform officials,” Amit says.
The reference is to 2019 when, the SP claims, BJP men entered strongrooms and tinkered with EVMs. Shivpal keeps raising this too, adding that the “tota (parrot, or BJP men)” won’t be able to “escape” this time if they tried something similar.
