Rebels loose ends in BSP’s Ambedkar Nagar bastion, but there is a common thread: Mayawati

People in Dahiyavar village, predominantly Dalits, are not happy about Verma’s defection to the SP, in June last year. And say it won’t affect their vote, which remains for the BSP. “We vote for Behenji (Mayawati), irrespective of the candidate… Verma became who he is today because of our support. He may even win, but he will not get the backing of Balasaheb’s followers,” says Dhruvchand, 45, a local ‘medical practitioner’.

Carved out from Faizabad in 1995, when Mayawati was the Chief Minister, Ambedkar Nagar district, with around 20% of the voters Dalit, is considered a BSP stronghold. The Ambedkar Nagar Lok Sabha seat has been represented by the BSP supremo six times. In an election where the BSP is being seen as a non-presence, literally, Ambedkar Nagar might be an exception.

Dalits aside, the other communities here are more or less evenly balanced — non-Yadav OBCs like Kurmis and Rajbhars form around 10% of the votes, Muslims 15%-odd, upper caste Brahmins and Thakurs 10%, and Yadavs and others another 10%.

The results in the past few elections show that any party that manages to get the backing of a mix of the above can win. In the 2017 polls, the BSP had won three of the five seats in the district — Akbarpur, Katehri and Jalalpur — and the BJP had picked two, Alapur and Tanda. In 2007, the BSP had won all, but so had the SP in 2012.

This time, the X factor is the number of rebels in the fray, eight in all. The SP alone has fielded four former BSP leaders from the five seats. Apart from Verma, they include prominent leader Ram Achal Rajbhar (who left the BSP along with Verma), from Akbarpur seat; Rakesh Pandey, a former BSP MP from Ambedkar Nagar, from Jalalpur seat; and former BSP MP Tribhuvan Dutt, from Alapur.

Rakesh Pandey’s son incidentally is the sitting MP for the BSP from Ambedkar Nagar now.

The BSP also has a rebel on its ticket, the SP’s Shabana Khatoon, from Tanda. The BJP has fielded SP rebel Subhash Rai from Jalalpur seat.

Bread-and-butter issues, like Manju’s in Chamurukha village of Katehri, figure low in these caste and religious calculations. Verma is the SP candidate from Katehri. Manju, 32, a Dalit whose family owns 1 bigha land, says the past two years of lockdowns and Covid restrictions have brought her children’s education to a halt. “Why were the children from poor backgrounds left out?” she asks. “Firstly, I don’t think Corona was that big an issue. And if it was, why didn’t the government give phones to our children?”

Her neighbour Krishna Gautam, 42, says it was Mayawati who made “Ambedkar Nagar what it is today”, including giving their children new opportunities. “She built the medical college here, roads… Behenji has continued the movement started by Babasaheb.” Plus, Krishna adds, even if they voted for other parties, they would hardly acknowledge their votes.

The divide is stark as one moves to Akbarpur’s Purani Tehsil Tiraha. Om Prakash Mishra, 41, a tea shop owner, says: “Why will I vote for any other party when the BJP has done so well? They have ensured the end of goonda raj. And look at Ayodhya. Something that could not be done for decades has been done by the BJP.”

Opposite his tea shop, at another stall, a group of Muslim youths are discussing the elections. Fareed Khan, 26, and unemployed, says: “We are sick of the BJP’s policies. Prices have touched the sky, there are no jobs anywhere.”

There is also the constant communal polarisation, he says. “The BJP has only done Hindu-Muslim in the last five years. The CM says this election is ‘80 vs 20’. What does that mean? They are dividing the society on religious lines… Look at the people who have been accused in cases of conversion. You will see that all are Muslims. They have wrongfully accused people of cow slaughter.”

Mayawati denounced the BSP rebels during a speech at Ambedkar Nagar, saying they left her with little choice but to expel them as they were trying to divide the party.

For the SP, its chance lies in pulling votes despite Mayawati’s hold. In his speeches, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav has been appealing to “supporters of Dr Ambedkar and socialist ideologue Dr Ram Manohar Lohia” to come together and vote for “social change”.