Temple coming up, but Ayodhya not a cakewalk for saffron party

The SP has pitted against Gupta its former minister Tej Narayan Pandey who had defeated the BJP’s five-term MLA

Lallu Singh in 2012, when the BJP lost the seat for the first time since 1991.

The Ayodhya constituency has 3.79 lakh voters, with Dalits forming a majority with 65,000 voters and Brahmins accounting for 40,000 voters. The Muslim and Yadav voters amount to around 1 lakh, with the Kayasth, Vaishya, Aggarwal, Kurmi, Nishad, Maurya, Rajbhar and other communities accounting for the remaining voters.

A BJP leader said, “The current social equations make the election a challenging task for our party in the prestigious Ayodhya seat. Yadavs and Muslims are traditional SP voters. Also, SP has fielded a local Brahmin candidate who will cut our Brahmin and other upper caste votes. The Dalit voters will play a key role here. But, people are associated with Lord Ram and Ayodhya, so on the voting day it is likely to turn into a Hindu-Muslim issue as had happened in 2017 polls.”

He said during their door-to-door canvassing the party leaders, besides the Ram temple, were also highlighting

free ration for poor, Kisan Samman Nidhi and development works like electricity supply, road widening and beautification of river ghats, which have been done by the Yogi Adityanath government.

“Till last polls, Ram temple was our long-pending commitment. But now the temple’s construction has begun, which has instilled people’s trust in BJP and raised our confidence,” said the BJP leader.

Still, taking a lesson from 2012, the party does not want to be “overconfident”. It has planned visits of leaders from different caste groups to woo their respective communities.

The BJP’s Awadh region election in-charge Shobha Karandlaje, Union minister, visited Ayodhya a few days ago. CM Adityanath has visited the town frequently in recent years to monitor the progress of the Ram temple’s construction and other development works besides organising the mega Deepotsav celebrations.

In 2017, Gupta had won the seat by 50,440 votes after getting 49.56 per cent of the votes polled. Until 2012, the BJP’s vote share had dipped consistently since 1991, when the BJP, at the peak of the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign, had won the constituency by garnering 51.30 per cent votes.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Gupta said, “I am reaching out to people and highlighting development works done in Ayodhya in five years.“

Gupta called the Ram temple issue a “matter of faith”, pointing out that its construction started after the Supreme Court ’s 9 November 2019 judgment and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s subsequent bid to perform “bhumi pujan”. “Prior to that, Yogi ji after becoming CM had launched various schemes for Ayodhya’s development as a tourism town,” he said.

The BSP has fielded Ravi Prakash Maurya, an OBC, in Ayodhya. The contest is however likely to be mainly between the BJP and the SP nominees.

On his campaign, SP candidate Tej Narayan Pandey said, “Adityanath government wants to run bulldozers on properties of ‘praja’ of Lord Ram in the name of development of roads and airport in Ayodhya. We are opposing it. If SP forms government, we will waive water and house taxes in Ayodhya municipal area. We have promised free electricity.”

On the Ram temple issue, Pandey claimed it would not help the BJP. “Am I against Ram temple? I also recite Hanuman Chalisa at Hanuman Garhi. No one here is opposing Ram temple. BJP is speaking only about Mandir, kabristan and shamshan. But our issues are employment, education and health. BJP government has failed on these issues,” he said, adding social equations also “favour” him.