Ahead of crucial UP phases, how BJP has put its Thakur headache behind

With this, BJP leaders say, the party has all but secured the Jaunpur seat for its candidate Kripa Shankar Singh, who is marking a return to state politics after a long stint in Mumbai. Dhananjay is known to have influence over not just Thakurs but also OBCs in Jaunpur and the adjoining Machhlishahr constituency.

The move also cleared any impression of a continuing fissure between the BJP and the Thakur community in the state, which was witnessed in the first phase of the polls. This is significant as Thakurs dominate many of the constituencies in central and eastern UP, which vote in the fifth, sixth and seventh phases.

Earlier, to quash resentment among Thakurs seen in west UP, over reportedly being “ignored” by the BJP for tickets, the party did course correction by fielding community leaders in important seats such as Kaiserganj, Rae Bareli and Mainpuri. From Kaiserganj, the BJP resisted opposition from within ranks to field the son of senior leader Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, whom it had to replace in the wake of charges of sexual harassment by women wrestlers.

Dinesh Pratap Singh and Jaiveer Singh are the Rae Bareli and Mainpuri candidates of the BJP, fielded against INDIA bloc leaders Rahul Gandhi and Dimple Yadav.

With Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath himself a Thakur, there were murmurs of him being “ignored” in the ticket distribution in west UP –which have now lost steam. Dinesh Singh is seen as close to the CM.

The fact that Thakurs in eastern and central UP do not have fierce rivalry with a community, such as with Gujjars in west UP, also helps.

Sources said that, in fact, all dominant Thakur strongmen in politics in these parts are now directly or indirectly with the BJP. They include Brij Bhushan, whose clout runs in Gonda; Brijesh Singh in Varanasi region; Raghuraj Pratap Singh a.k.a ‘Raja Bhaiya’ in Pratapgarh area; Dhananjay Singh of Jaunpur; and Abhay Singh of Ayodhya. While they all belong to east UP, their influence runs beyond their areas.

Among them, only Brij Bhushan is seen as not in tune with Adityanath. The two are never seen together in public, while the outgoing BJP MP never shies away from criticising the Adityanath government openly. At a gathering earlier this week, Brij Bhushan said he was against “bulldozer policy”, a swipe at the Adityanath government having set off the practice of razing properties of alleged lawbreakers. A person makes a property “with a lot of hard work”, Brij Bhushan, who is believed to enjoy influence among Thakurs and Kurmis in Gonda, Ayodhya, Barabanki, Basti, Balrampur and Sidharth Nagar, said.

Brijesh Singh, a Varanasi-based mafia don, has never hid his allegiance with the BJP – and Adityanath in particular. He is out on bail since August 2022, after receiving acquittal in most of the 35 cases of heinous charges against him, including murder. He had been arrested in 2008 by the Delhi Police.

In 2016, Brijesh became an Independent MLC after the BJP did not field a candidate against him from Varanasi. In 2022, his wife Annapurna Singh won the same MLC seat in a shock win against a BJP candidate, setting off speculation about whose support she enjoyed.

Brijesh is believed to have influence among Thakurs and Bhumihars in Varanasi, Chandauli, Mirzapur, Ghazipur, Mau, Ballia and also in some districts of Bihar and Jharkhand.

Similarly, ‘Raja Bhaiya’, who has now won the Kunda Assembly seat seven times consecutively, six of those times as an Independent, before he floated a party in 2022, is also believed to enjoy the blessings of Adityanath.

In 2013, when Raja Bhaiya, then a minister in the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party government, was booked for the murder of Deputy SP Zia-ul-Haq in Pratapgarh, Adityanath, then the Gorakhpur BJP MP, had gone against the party line to say that Raja Bhaiya had been “falsely framed”.

Apart from the Akhilesh government, Raja Bhaiya has served as a minister in the BJP governments of Kalyan Singh and Rajnath Singh, and SP government of Mulayam Singh Yadav. Earlier this year, Raja Bhaiya supported BJP candidates in the Rajya Sabha polls in UP.

He is seen as having influence among Thakurs and OBCs, including Yadavs and Kewats, in Pratapgarh and Kaushambi districts.

Dhananjay too has rotated between parties, with never a long lull in his fortunes. A two-time MLA (2002, 2007) and one-time MP (2009), he had 38 criminal cases lodged against him until 2022, including of murder, of which 10 are currently pending. During the BSP’s 2007-2012 regime, he was seen as loyal to CM Mayawati.

Soon after the BJP came to power in 2017, led by Adityanath, Dhananjay faced allegations of being part of a conspiracy behind the killing of gangster Munna Bajrangi in Baghpat jail in 2018. However, he got a clean chit. He was also named in the daylight killing of Ajit Singh, a strongman of Azamgarh, in Lucknow in January 2022, and again got a clean chit on charges of murder and conspiracy, with only minor offences sustaining against him.

Abhay Singh, a friend-turned-foe of Dhananjay, and the sitting SP MLA from Ayodhya’s Gosainganj constituency, has also declared his allegiance to the BJP. He voted for the BJP in this year’s Rajya Sabha elections. Last month, his father and wife joined the BJP.

Abhay is known to be helping the BJP in Ayodhya, Ambedkar Nagar, Barabanki and Basti constituencies.