Muzaffarnagar: Samajwadi Party’s ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) on Thursday won the Khatauli bypoll in Uttar Pradesh, with its candidate Madan Bhaiya defeating his BJP rival Rajkumari Saini by a margin of over 22,000 votes. Rajkumari Saini is the wife of former BJP MLA Vikram Singh Saini, who was necessitated by the by-election due to his disqualification from the state assembly following his conviction in a 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots case. According to the Election Commission, Madan Bhaiya got 97,071 votes, while Rajkumari Saini got 74,996 votes. Thanking the people of Khatauli for the victory, RLD said, ‘This historic victory of Madan Bhaiya, the candidate of the alliance, is the victory of the hardworking workers of Rashtriya Lok Dal, Samajwadi Party and Azad Samaj Party.’
In the counting of votes, Madan Bhaiya took an early lead and was leading by a margin of around 3,000 votes after 10 rounds. As the counting progressed, the margin widened. Khatauli has 3.16 lakh voters, which is considered a BJP stronghold. In the eight assembly elections since 1991, BJP candidates won in 1991, 1993, 2017 and 2022. RLD won the seat in 2002 and 2012. The BJP had won all the six seats in Muzaffarnagar in the 2017 assembly elections. It lost four assembly constituencies in 2022 due to unpopularity among Jat voters in the wake of farmers’ protests.
However, it managed to win Muzaffarnagar and Khatauli seats. In Khatauli, Vikram Singh Saini was able to retain his seat with a margin of over 16,000 votes. During the campaign for the bypolls, the BJP deployed several of its senior leaders, including chief minister Yogi Adityanath, both deputy chief ministers, and social welfare minister Aseem Arun, campaigning for the party’s candidates.
Along with the poll plank of development, BJP leaders are fanning the 2013 communal riots in the district that left 62 dead and nearly 40,000 displaced. While addressing an election rally, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had claimed that Saini, convicted in the hate speech case, had lost his assembly membership not for any family issue, but for the dignity of Muzaffarnagar. The Chief Minister had said, “It is a politically motivated and fabricated case.” Adityanath also launched a scathing attack on rivals over the alleged poor law and order situation during the Samajwadi Party’s rule in Uttar Pradesh. He alleged, “They want our daughters and sisters not to come out on the streets. They want a Taliban-like regime.”