Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav with his wife and former MP Dimple Yadav.
Credit: PTI Photo
Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh: Among one of the few seats in Uttar Pradesh, which has remained unaffected by the ‘’Modi wave’’ and has been a Samajwadi Party (SP) bastion since 1996, Mainpuri, this time, witnesses a fight between ‘legacy’ and ‘change’.
SP nominee and party president Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple Yadav, who had won this seat in a by-poll in 2022 necessitated by the death of the SP founder and the then MP from Mainpuri Mulayam Singh Yadav, appears to be embroiled in a tough contest against the BJP nominee and UP minister Thakur Jaiveer Singh.
While Dimple is fighting to protect the family legacy, the BJP has been focusing on "change" and asking the electorate to ‘reject’ dynasty politics and support ‘’politics of development’’.
The constituency, which is dominated by the ‘Yadavs’, appears to be sharply divided along caste lines with a majority of the ‘Yadavs’ backing the SP nominee along with the Muslims, who are also in significant numbers.
Mainpuri has an estimated 3.5 lakh Yadav voters while the Muslims number around 80 thousand. Thakurs and Brahmins together form around 2.8 lakh. The constituency also has around 1.3 lakh Dalit voters.
“Mainpuri had always been with Netaji (Mulayam)...Dimple Yadav is his daughter-in-law…we will support her just like we did in 2022,’’ said Ramesh Yadav, a resident of Ghiror, while having tea at a roadside shop near Kutchery Road in the town.
Rajveer Singh, a resident of the old town and a Thakur, however, differs. ‘’The contest this time won’t be easy for Dimple Yadav, and she knows it…. she has not left the constituency since filing her nomination papers and has been camping here,’’ Singh said.
Being a Thakur, the BJP nominee is banking heavily on the support of his community members as well as committed voters of the saffron party hailing from Brahmin, Kurmi and the ‘Lodhi’ (OBCs) communities, who too are in good numbers in the constituency.
The BSP has fielded a ‘Yadav’ candidate from here who, according to some, may eat into the core vote bank of the SP. ‘’We are confident of a win here…our victory margin will increase,’’ said SP district president Alok Shakya.
Return of Shivpal Singh Yadav to the fold was likely to benefit the SP as the former’s assembly constituency of Jaswant Nagar, which was part of Mainpuri LS seat, had, in the past, provided a huge lead to the SP nominees.
BJP, it seems, has put its prestige at stake in Mainpuri. Almost all the top leaders of the saffron party, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, had addressed election rallies in the constituency. Adityanath visited the constituency four times and also held a roadshow here a few days back.
Akhilesh also held a roadshow on Saturday but alleged attempts by some SP workers to hoist a party flag on the statue of Maharana Pratap soon after the roadshow evoked a sharp protest from the Thakur community.
‘’It is going to be a close contest this time….in 2022 there was a sympathy wave after Mulayam Singh Yadav’s death and as a result Dimple had secured around 65 per cent votes…the situation is different this time,’’ says Prabhat Chaturvedi, a local scribe.
‘’BJP has worked a lot on strengthening its organization at the booth level and it will get reflected in the polls,’’ Chaturvedi told Deccan Herald.
Polling will be held in Mainpuri on May 7.