SP registers emphatic win in MSY bastion, BJP wrests Rampur Sadar seat

LUCKNOW Riding high on the sympathy wave and Yadav family reunion, Samajwadi Party’s Dimple Yadav on Thursday registered an emphatic win in the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, inheriting it from her late father-in-law and SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav. At the same time, the BJP snatched the Muslim dominated Rampur Sadar assembly seat, which it could never win earlier. SP’s ally, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), displaced the BJP from the Khatauli (Muzaffarnagar) assembly seat.

Dimple Yadav, former Kannauj MP and SP chief Akhilesh’s wife, while winning the seat, surpassed Mulayam’s last victory margin. Mulayam Singh Yadav had won the 2019 LS polls (in alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) by 94,000 votes while Dimple won it now by a huge margin of 2,88,461 votes against her nearest rival – BJP’s Raghuraj Shakya – in a straight fight between the two. The BSP and the Congress had stayed away from the bypolls.

“The victory is dedicated to Netaji,” said Dimple at a joint press conference along with Akhilesh Yadav, in Mainpuri.

“It’s the victory of Mainpuri and tribute to Netaji...it’s a mandate against negative politics…voters have endorsed the politics of Netaji and the development he did in Mainpuri. We will take it forward…the administration created pressure, but voters defied it. Mainpuri has sent a message out for the 2024 LS election,” said SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.

“Rampur saw injustice against the SP candidate. Had it been a fair election in Rampur, it would have been a historic win there also,” he added.

By-elections were held in Mainpuri on December 5 because of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s demise on October 10 and bypolls in Rampur Sadar and Khatauli were necessitated due to the disqualification of SP MLA Azam Khan and BJP MLA Vikram Singh Saini following their conviction by separate courts in different matters.

The BJP won the Rampur Sadar assembly seat for the first time as its candidate Akash Saxena defeated Azam Khan’s close aide Asim Raza of the Samajwadi Party. The saffron party had also wrested the Rampur Lok Sabha seat in the bypolls held in June. The RLD’s Madan Bhaiyya won the Khatauli seat by defeating BJP’s candidate Rajkumari Saini, wife of Vikram Saini, by over 22,000 votes.

In the midst of Dimple Yadav’s victory, Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party Lohia (PSPL) founder Shivpal Singh Yadav announced the merger of his party into Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP). The leaders announced that they will stay together.

The sympathy wave due to Mulayam’s demise and a legacy plea to the voters worked wonders in Mainpuri, but the victim card that Azam Khan played in Rampur failed. The “anti-hate politics and pro-farmers” stance by Jayant Chaudhary’s RLD seemed to have worked in Khatauli.

The support from Dalit leader and Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad and the anti-BJP campaign by Shrikant Tyagi, who was accused of assaulting a woman in Noida, too seemed to have helped the RLD in its Khatauli victory.

Akash Saxena, 47, is the man who had filed about 30 of the nearly 100 FIRs related to land grabbing and other malpractices against Azam Khan in Rampur. The closely contested Rampur Sadar seat witnessed a see-saw battle since morning, ending in Saxena’s convincing win by a margin of nearly 34,000 votes amid allegations of counting malpractices by the SP camp.

WHAT THEY SAY

UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath

“Congratulations to the winners of Mainpuri, Rampur, and Khatauli bypolls. BJP won the Rampur assembly seat for the first time, greetings to the winner Akash Saxena and all the BJP workers in Rampur for this.”

Shivpal Yadav, SP MLA

“It’s the victory of Samajwad (socialism) and Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav). Netaji’s charisma lives on. And from now on, it will be a fight between the BJP and the SP”.

RLD president Jayant Chaudhary

“Very happy for the way we got support from all in Khatauli and Mainpuri. This is a sign of harmony in society. I am hurt at the way democractic values were compromised in Rampur. Won’t celebrate the victory.”