Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav may have been successful in bringing Om Prakash Rajbhar into the party, but the question is whether Rajbhar will change the party’s fortunes in the upcoming 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.
Experts said the development was important in the context of the upcoming elections, but it was ultimately an advantage for Akhilesh. He said that the dominance of Rajbhar’s Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) in the Purvanchal region of the state needs to be explored.
Read also | Om Prakash Rajbhar’s SBSP ties up with SP for UP elections, seat sharing not yet decided
It is a common saying in the political circles of UP that the one who wins in Purvanchal forms the government of the state. In 2017, BJP won 106 out of 156 assembly seats in 26 districts, in 2012 the SP got 85 seats and in 2007 the BSP got over 70 seats – all from Purvanchal. This is the reason why BJP is doing many of its programs in Purvanchal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also made several visits to the region.
In 2017 election, BJP registered a big victory in Purvanchal as it won 106 seats from this region. At that time the BJP was contesting the elections in alliance with Rajbhar’s SBSP. But now the situation has changed. It will be interesting to see whether Akhilesh benefits from this alliance or not.
Speaking to News18, veteran journalist and political commentator Ratan Mani Lal discussed the pros and cons of an alliance between Akhilesh-led SP and Rajbhar-led SBSP. “There is a general perception among non-Rajbhar people about OP Rajbhar that he can be the leader of the community but cannot be trusted politically. He had already announced his partnership morcha with PSPL (Pragatigal Samajwadi Party-Lohia), AIMIM and some other parties, but then suddenly announced that he was going with SP; This shows their fickleness. Voters across the state will look for a leadership that can give something back. This alliance has now given a signal to the Rajbhar community that their leader is with a strong party like Samajwadi Party if not BJP.
“I feel if the SBSP had remained in the partnership morcha, the political situation in Rajbhar would have ended. Even if it points to opportunism on their part, it can be termed as a wise move. Profit is certain for the Samajwadi Party; I am not sure what Rajbhar will get. The SP can now rightly claim that it has the support of a caste-based party, which has a strong leader and has voluntarily joined the SP,” Lal said.
Taking a look at the available data, it is clear that smaller parties, when they contest elections alone, do not make much difference. However, things take a turn when they contest elections in alliance with major parties. In the 2012 election, the SBSP contested on 52 seats alone, but did not win any.
But things changed for the party when it contested in alliance with the BJP during the 2017 election. Rajbhar understood that the party whose vote share is more than 20 percent, its victory is sure. BJP was also looking for a partner with 5,000 to 10,000 votes in each seat. By adopting this strategy, the coalition parties won many seats.
Rajbhar’s SBSP also won four seats with the support of the BJP. The party’s vote share increased from 5 per cent to 34 per cent in 2017. Hence, the role of SBSP in BJP’s historic victory in the Purvanchal region in 2017 cannot be denied.
When SBSP and BJP parted ways, Akhilesh was quick to adopt the same strategy. In the 2017 election, the SP candidate came second in three of the eight seats the SBSP contested.
It seems that Akhilesh has made a conscious choice by bringing Rajbhar into the party, hope this strategy will work in the Purvanchal region. According to the data, in the 2012 elections, in those seats where the SBSP had garnered a good amount of votes, the SP came second in those seats in 2017. In some seats, the SP’s ally Congress came second in 2017.
During the 2012 elections, the SBSP secured 10,000 to 35,000 votes in Belthara Road, Hata, Sikanderpur, Jakhanian, Shivpur and Rohanian. In these particular seats, the SP had come second in the 2017 elections. In Phephna and Zahoorabad, the SP finished third, but was behind the BSP by only a few votes.
Now if the votes of SBSP were merged with that of SP, victory would have been certain. The number of such seats is more than 20, which is a huge number. This is the reason why Akhilesh is expected to do well in the Purvanchal region.
However, to fill the void created by Rajbhar, BJP has given ministerial post to Anil Rajbhar. Along with this, Anupriya Patel and Sanjay Nishad are also with the BJP in Purvanchal.
Asked whether other members of the Partnership Morcha were also included in the alliance with the SP, SBSP national spokesperson Piyush Mishra said, “The details of the alliance were announced on October 27 during a grand rally at Haldar Maidan in Mau. Will. There is no difference between us on seat-sharing. We invited Congress, SP and BSP to fight against BJP from 2019 December. During the district panchayat elections, we extended our support to Anand Chaudhary, son of SP leader Ambika Chaudhary in Ballia. In the recent election of Deputy Speaker of UP Assembly also we supported the official SP candidate.
“Akhilesh ji met our party chief and said that both are fighting for similar reasons. Our agenda is to remove BJP from power. Owaisi ji’s party partnership is not a part of Sankalp Morcha. He broke our trust the day his party’s UP chief Shaukat Ali announced that AIMIM would contest 100 seats. About Shivpal ji I want to say that he is a great leader and things will be sorted out soon. Shivpal ji has been invited for the mega rally on October 27, it is up to him to participate in it,” said Mishra.
“SBSP has a substantial support base in Purvanchal, which will definitely help in consolidating the vote in favor of the party. The SP is committed to providing representation to all castes and communities, and the alliance is a step to strengthen representative democracy. We will do our best to accommodate smaller parties with a strong support base,” said SP spokesperson Abdul Hafiz Gandhi.
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