In Mainpuri, BJP has given Mulayam Singh a walkover

Mainpuri: After what has been seen as a capitulation by the BJP, the only suspense left in Mainpuri is the margin by which Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav will win on his home-turf. Had there been a strong BJP candidate, Mainpuri might just have witnessed a good fight between the SP and the BJP, say political observers. The BJP’s announcement of SS Chauhan’s candidature last month had led to an uproar in the local BJP unit with leaders threatening to resign if the party didn’t reconsider its decision. Chauhan’s well-known association with senior Samajwadi Party leaders has many asking why an ‘outsider’ with no political history or connection to the BJP has been parachuted from above to take on the SP chief. “Mulayam will win and his margin this time could increase because the BJP has chosen a weak candidate. Chauhan has a poor public image. He was court-martialled by the Army and people here see him as a fraud. Even BJP’s traditional voter, the Thakurs, are not supporting him…In the past, he has been very close to Shivpal Singh Yadav. So much so, Chauhan’s college was inaugurated by the SP leader. Though he was never associated with the party he was always with the SP,” Anil Mishra, a senior journalist told Firstpost. [caption id=“attachment_1493121” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Mulayam Singh should coast to victory in Mainpuri. PTI image[/caption] BJP’s decision to field Chauhan, says Mishra, ended any possibility of a ‘Modi-wave’ and will result in a fall of the BJP’s voteshare. The tepid response to BJP president Rajnath Singh’s rally in Mainpuri on Tuesday, he said, sums up the mood in the constituency. While BJP spokesperson Pradeep Chauhan, vehemently denies the ‘dummy’ candidate allegation as ‘bogus’, the opposition is going to town with it. When asked whether she would be affected by the ‘Modi for PM’ campaign, BSP candidate Sanghmitra Maurya said , “There is no wave here. The BJP has put up a dummy candidate against Mulayam Singh.” “Two months ago, the minister Shivpal Singh Yadav inaugurated the candidate’s college. Another senior leader Ram Gopal Yadav stayed in the candidate’s house when he came to attend his daughter’s wedding. It is obvious to everyone that he is a dummy candidate, ” Maurya, the daughter of former minister Swami Prasad Maurya, said. Both Shivpal and Ram Gopal are Mulayam’s brothers. In nearby Saifai, Mulayam’s ancestral village, members of the Yadav family are talking of a ‘record victory margin’ for the SP chief. Dharmendra Singh Yadav, Mulayam’s nephew and former MP from Mainpuri, said, “Not only is Mulayam Singh going to win but he is going to win by a record margin….The Samajwadi Party is said to be weak in western Uttar Pradesh. In the 21 seats where elections have happened, you will see that we will go from five sitting MPs to 12.” [caption id=“attachment_1493169” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Mulayam Singh’s nephew Tej Pratap Yadav, who is managing the SP chief’s campaign says, the only contest in Mainpuri is for the second place between BSP and BJP. Naresh Sharma/ Firstpost[/caption] Seated in his sprawling bungalow in Saifai, another of Mulayam’s nephews, Tej Pratap Yadav, who is managing the SP chief’s campaign said, “You will see after counting how many votes by BJP will get. There is no wave. Our winning margin will be double what we got last time.” Mulayam won by a margin of 1.7 lakh votes in 2009. Comparing 2014 to 1996, a year when Mulayam had won the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, but had lost the upper caste vote in Mainpuri city to the BJP, Mishra said, “Back then, when Vajpayee had come to address a rally in Mainpuri, the streets and buildings were bursting with people who wanted to see and hear him. But this time it is not like that.” “The banias are not voting for the BJP. Had the BJP candidate been strong, there would have been a good fight. But there is no fight now,” Mishra said. Explaining why defeating Mulayam was impossible under the present circumstances, Mishra said, “In Mainpuri, Yadavs form the largest community. To defeat him here is impossible. After Saifai and Jaswant Nagar, with their large Yadav populations, were included in the Mainpuri constituency, the population of Yadavs has increased. And they don’t vote for anyone but SP.” The Yadavs make up 3.5 lakh of the 15 lakh strong electorate in Mainpuri followed by Thakurs (1.8 lakh) Shakyas (1.6 lakh), Jatavs (1.4 lakh), Brahmins (1.2 lakh), Lodh-Rajput (1 lakh), Muslims (87,000) and Banias (81,000). For most voters in the Mainpuri city, the election is a foregone conclusion. [caption id=“attachment_1493171” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sarvesh Kumar, a vegetable vendor, says Mulayam Singh will get a decisive mandate and that he has brought power and better roads to Mainpuri. Naresh Sharma/ Firstpost[/caption] “Whatever development has happened in Mainpuri is because of Samajwadi Party. Other parties only serve their own communities. We have good roads, we have electricity here. We feel that SP will return with a decisive mandate,” Sarvesh Kumar, a vegetable vendor, said. Asked about Modi, he said, “Here the wave is less. This is a bastion of the SP. Yes, people talk about Modi but I haven’t paid attention to what they say.” But there are also voices that are extremely angry and frustrated with Mulayam’s blatant nepotism and the muscle-men his henchmen use to silence those who dare to raise their voice against the mighty Yadavs. “There is no development, no industry here to speak of. The only development that has happened is the progress and promotion of his native village Saifai, of his own family and of the people of his community. This road you see in front of us was fixed two months ago,” Anupam Chauhan, an advocate, said. “This is not development, this is only drama before the elections. When his henchmen run riot there is one here who is willing to register an FIR. People are afraid to speak against them for fear of retribution,” he said. Chauhan says the elections in Mainpuri are a one-sided affair. “There are some villages here that are 80 per cent Yadav. The remaining 20 per cent are either too scared to vote or have their vote snatched from them,” he said, referring Mainpuri’s infamous record of booth capturing. The 2004 bye-election in which SP’s Dharmendra Singh Yadav had contested was countermanded by the Election Commission and a re-poll ordered after it had investigated wide-spread allegations of irregularities and reports of booth capturing. ( Read the EC report countermanding the Mainpuri by-poll here) On Tuesday, the BJP candidate wrote to the EC asking for Mainpuri constituency to be declared ‘extra-sensitive.’ While the BJP candidate is politically a non-entity, says Chauhan, he may get votes in the name of Modi. “He is a first-timer. People haven’t heard of him. We have not seen his work. He has no political background. But because there is Modi, he may get votes. But how much the wave will translate into votes remains to be seen. Then again, given that the Yadav vote is in a majority, it is Mulayam who will ultimately win.” Are the people in Mainpuri swayed by Modi? “Modi is a good man but the question is, can he run a government? There is a big difference in running a state and running a nation. I’m not against the BJP but they’ve made one man the hero. Where is Vajpayee today? Is anyone in the BJP even talking about him?” Pankaj Johri, who runs a medical store in the city, said. Johri says Mulayam’s victory from Mainpuri is “100 per cent certain.” Asked if voters don’t want a change, he said, “Who else is there to vote for?” Responding to the same question Subhash Chandra Chait, an advocate, said, “The reason we don’t try another candidate is because we have suffered for five years under Mayawati’s reign. Mainpuri didn’t have power for three hours a day when the BSP government was in power.” “We couldn’t offer people a glass of cold water…Today the mood in Mainpuri today is positive. We believe Mulayamji will win. We are happy with the development he has brought,” he said. On BJP and Modi, Chait said, “The party’s senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi has recently given a statement saying that there is a BJP, not a Modi, wave. What does that tell you? Yes, a BJP that was asleep is today in the contest. But no matter how much of a Modi wave you say there is, in five years he will be an utter failure.”