The BJP’s first post-independence victory in the Rampur Assembly seat on Thursday has further cemented Brand Yogi’s dominance in Uttar Pradesh, indicating that UP is now the saffron party’s second biggest stronghold after Gujarat. Rampur seat has more than 50 percent Muslim population.
The BJP won the Lok Sabha bypolls in both Samajwadi Party bastions Azamgarh and Rampur earlier this year. BJP had never won the Rampur assembly seat since independence, Azam Khan and his family have been winning from here for the Samajwadi Party for the last two decades. The seat has always seen a Muslim MLA since independence. Akash Saxena of BJP has now won here with 62% vote share, indicating that some Muslim voters have also voted for BJP in Rampur assembly seat.
The result was a complete reversal from the assembly elections held in Rampur in March this year, when Azam Khan defeated Akash Saxena and won with nearly 60% vote share. Khan was later disqualified after being convicted in a case that prompted the by-election. Azam Khan’s grip on the Rampur assembly seat was such that out of the total 20 elections held on this seat, he and his family won this seat 11 times.
Azam Khan was the MLA from Rampur from 1980 to 1995 and from 2002 to 2022. This time the ticket was given to someone close to Azam Khan.
BJP’s winning candidate Akash Saxena is the son of former minister Shiv Bahadur Saxena and he said that Muslims were never given respect in Rampur during the reign of Azam Khan. “The Muslims were always subjugated here and their love was treated as a form of slavery. Saxena said, Muslims have broken the shackles of slavery to support me in this election.
His father, Shiv Bahadur Saxena was defeated by Azam Khan in Rampur in the 2017 assembly elections. Akash also lost to Azam Khan in March this year. Saxena’s family has now managed to take sweet revenge on Khan.
However, the BJP lost the Manipuri seat in the Khatauli assembly by-election and the Lok Sabha by-election, with the former being won by the RLD and the latter by Dimple Yadav. The Khatauli seat is a setback for the BJP as the new BJP state president Bhupendra Chowdhary hails from this region of West UP. After the death of Mulayam Singh Yadav, the Samajwadi Party has come to its stronghold of Manipuri in a wave of sympathy.
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