BSP yet to beat spoilsport factor to taste LS success in Mohanlalganj

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which has Dalits as its major support base, is chasing its dreams to register its maiden win in Dalit dominant Mohanlalganj Lok Sabha constituency (reserved under Scheduled Caste category) of Lucknow since the party came into being four decades ago on April 14, 1984.

The BSP has been in power in the state multiple times and even won three assembly segments of Mohanlalganj Lok Sabha constituency, including Mahona (now Bakshi ka Talab), Sarojini Nagar and Sidhauli assembly of Sitapur district in 2007 polls.

That year, the party had won 206 assembly seats out of 403 but still failed to claim Mohanlalganj Lok Sabha seat in 2009 general election despite being in power.

In 2007, RK Chaudhary, a BSP rebel, had won Mohanlalganj assembly seat while contesting as Rashtriya Swabhiman Party (RSP) and supported another BSP rebel Jai Prakash in 2009 Lok Sabha polls which spoiled its prospects.

In 2014, Samajwadi Party’s Sushila Saroj played the spoilsport for BSP candidate RK Chaudhary while Chaudhary did a similar thing for BSP candidate CL Verma while contesting on Indian National Congress ticket and securing 60,069 votes in 2019.

The party candidates have been the runner up in Lok Sabha elections in Mohanlalganj for the past two decades since 2004 and every time the win slipped from their hands despite having 38.7% Dalit voters, including 21% Pasi and 14.5% Jatav, due to one or the other reason.

Since first Lok Sabha election in 1951-52, the Indian National Congress (INC) has won the seat seven times, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) four times each while the Bharatiya Lok Dal (BLD) bagged it once.

BJP’s Kaushal Kishore won the seat for the last two consecutive terms in 2014 and 2019, riding high on the combination of Dalit and upper caste votes while SP’s Sushila Saroj, Jai Prakash and Reena Chaudhary won it four times in 2009, 2004, 1999, 1998 respectively riding on the combination of Dalit, Yadav as well as other backward caste votes.

Reena Chaudhary won it twice in 1998 and 1999. Before it, BJP’s Purnima Verma and Chote Lal won the seat twice in 1996 and 1991 and Janata Dal’s Sarju Prasad Saroj and INC’s Jagannath Prasad won the seat in 1989 and 1984 respectively.

This time again, BSP’s Rajesh Kumar is contesting from here with the aim of getting full support of Dalit voters and win the seat for the first time. However, he has a tough fight against BJP candidate Kaushal Kishore and INDIA bloc candidate RK Chaudhary who is in the fray on an SP ticket.

“As Mohanlalganj Lok Sabha seat has large share of Pasi caste, all major parties field Pasi community candidates from here,” a Mohanlalganj-based political analyst Bajrang Rawat said.

He said rural areas of Mohanlalganj Lok Sabha have historically been Dalit-dominated but their votes are distributed almost equally among the three major candidates, all from the Pasi community, after which the party cadre vote finally matters.

“When votes of Yadavs (11.1%) and Muslims (14.2%) combined, SP candidates won in 2004 and 2009, while BJP won when its cadre votes of 16.6% upper castes, including Brahmins (8.3%), Kshatriyas (7.3%), and Kayastha (1%), combined in the past two terms,” he explained.

BSP candidate CL Verma in alliance with SP secured 5,39,795 votes but lost to Kaushal Kishore by 90,204 votes in 2019.

In 2014 polls, RK Chaudhary of the BSP secured 3,09,858 votes but lost to Kaushal Kishore by 1,45,416 votes.

BSP’s Jai Prakash secured 1,79,772 votes but lost to SP’s Sushila Saroj by 76,595 votes in 2009 Lok Sabha polls. It was despite the fact that the BSP was in power in Uttar Pradesh between 2007 and 2012.

In 2004, BSP’s Radhe Lal (1,46,010) gave a tough fight to SP’s Jai Prakash (1,48,578) but lost the poll by merely 2,568 votes.