Dalit voters will play a decisive role in the bypoll to the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, as the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress will not be in the fray.
Polling will take place in Mainpuri on December 5.
The contest in Manipuri, considered to be a Samajwadi Party bastion, is between Dimple Yadav, the daughter-in-law of late Mulayam Singh Yadav, and Bharatiya Janata Party’s Raghunath Shakya.
Mulayam Singh Yadav had first contested from Manipuri seat in 1996 and won. Since then, the seat has remained with the SP.
During the last three decades the elections in Manipuri have been fought on the basis of caste only. This is the reason why apart from the issues or a wave in the by-election, both SP and BJP are eyeing the caste equations. The emphasis of SP is to break into other castes, besides Yadav and Muslim.
On the other hand, the BJP is trying to attract Kshatriya, Brahmin, Lodhi and Vaishya vote banks and penetrate the electoral divide with the help of its candidate Raghunath Shakya.
Election statistics from Manipuri shows that though the BSP has contested many Lok Sabha elections in Mainpuri and may not have won, the party always polled a significant number of votes. Due to its core voters, the BSP has also been at number two. This time, with BSP not in fray, all parties are eyeing the core vote bank of the BSP. The party which is able to attract the BSP’s vote to its side will succeed in the election.
In the 2009 Lok Sabha election, the BSP gave a fight to the SP. Even though the party could not win, its candidate, Vinay Shakya, polled 2.19 lakh votes. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BSP candidate Sanghamitra Maurya secured 1.42 lakh votes in the SP bastion. However, the BSP did not contest from Mainpuri parliamentary constituency in 2019 due to electoral alliance with the SP. In 2019, Mulayam Singh Yadav won the election by polling over 5.26 lakh votes, and the BJP candidate was defeated by about 94,000 votes.
If local analysts are to be believed, the BJP knows that it can sail through in Mainpuri with the help of Dalit voters. That is why it has deployed Minister Asim Arun and MP Ramshankar Katheria to woo the Dalit votes. Along with this, many other Dalit leaders are also engaged in breaking into this vote bank.
BJP state general secretary (organisation) Dharampal Saini is also focusing on this seat. He visited the constituency twice and has held meetings up to booth level. Apart from this, every big and small worker is working with full force.
On the other hand, SP has also fielded many big leaders from BSP to woo the voters of Dalit and Shakya communities.
The SP’s emphasis is on keeping the Dalit vote bank intact with Muslims and Yadavs (MY). Dalit leaders have been instructed to camp in villages. However, it is believed that Dalit voters hesitate to go with Yadavs. This has been seen in several elections. If it happens this time too, it can be very difficult for the SP.
There are about 17 lakh voters in Mainpuri. Of them, around 4.30 lakh are Yadavs, 2.80 lakh are Shakyas and 1.80 lakh are Dalits. Similarly, there are more than two lakh Thakurs, and 1.20 lakh Brahmins. There are also one lakh Lodhi voters, 60,000 Muslims and 70,000 Vaishyas in Mainpuri.
This time there is a direct contest between the SP and the BJP in the Manipuri by-election. According to the equation of castes, no one is less than the other. SP is fighting to save Mulayam Singh Yadav’s legacy while the BJP wants to take a lead by winning the seat. The BJP knows that if the Mainpuri seat comes in its lap, then it will bolster its claim to win all 80 Lok Sabha seats from UP.
As per the caste equations, the Jatav vote is the deciding factor and that is why both the parties are trying to woo them. It is for sure that whatever may be the result, the contest is going to be very interesting.
