Amid BSP eclipse, a new star rises: Bhim Army’s Azad wins from Nagina

WHILE THE BSP’s decline in Uttar Pradesh continues, the party now has a new challenger to contend with: young Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Azad, who won from the Nagina Scheduled Caste-reserved constituency of western UP by a margin of over 1.51 lakh votes.

Azad, who did not join the INDIA bloc, contested under his own party’s banner — Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) – defeating the BJP’s Om Kumar by securing 51.19% of the votes. The BJP share fell to 36%.

The BSP’s Surendra Pal Singh got only 1.33% of the votes, way behind even the Samajwadi Party’s (SP’s) Manoj Kumar, whose vote share was 10.22%. In 2019, the BSP’s Girish Chandra had defeated the BJP’s Yashwant Singh by a margin of 1.66 lakh votes.

While the Dalits (mostly Jatavs, the BSP’s main support base) comprise around 20% of the population in Nagina, Muslims are about 40%. The rest include Thakurs, Jats, Chauhan Rajputs, Tyagis and Banias.

Though Muslims are seen to have rallied behind the SP-Congress alliance across the state, with the BSP’s base considered shrunk but still strong among the Jatavs, in Nagina, Azad seems to have garnered votes from both.

“The BSP has no member in the Lok Sabha now. It is Azad who will raise the issues of Dalits and Muslims in the House. That will help him rise as the leader of Dalits and certainly emerge as an alternative to Mayawati. That will further weaken the BSP,” said a leader of the Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) or ASP.

Azad’s victory from Nagina is significant for two more reasons. It is because of his insistence on getting this Lok Sabha constituency that alliance talks between the ASP and SP fell through this time. Following this, the ASP decided to go alone in the polls and Azad then ran a door-to-door campaign in Nagina.

Ano