BJP Nishad ally struggles in Sant Kabir Nagar, but for Modi-Yogi name

Sanjay Nishad is among the leaders of many different caste groups in Uttar Pradesh who has always punched above his weight. In the 2022 Assembly polls, with one son the sole MLA of his NISHAD Party and another the only MP, he had talked of demanding deputy chief ministership from the BJP to continue their alliance.

The BJP held out then, but its concession to Sanjay Nishad, an MLC and minister in the Yogi Adityanath government, in repeating his son Praveen from the Sant Kabir Nagar Lok Sabha seat may end up proving costly for the party.

While the different castes and groups in this constituency, named after sage Kabir, seem to be divided on most issues, the anger against sitting MP Praveen, contesting on the BJP ticket, for “abandoning” voters after his 2019 win, runs across.

Plus, on the other side is another Nishad, the INDIA bloc’s Lakshmikant Pappu Nishad, who is more known to people in the area, having been a local MLA and a minister in Mulayam Singh Yadav’s 2003-2007 government.

Even in the midst of the 2019 BJP wave Lok Sabha election, the party didn’t have it easy in Sant Kabir Nagar. Praveen got 43.97% of the votes, against the 40.61% share of the joint SP-BSP candidate, Bhishm Shankar Tiwari. In 2014, when the BJP fielded Sharad Tripathi, it had finished far ahead of its rivals, but the BSP and SP had contested separately at the time.

Sant Kabir Nagar has a substantial share of OBCs, Dalits, Muslims, Brahmins and Thakurs. In 2019, the SP-BSP alliance candidate is believed to have got most of the Yadav, Dalit and Muslim votes, apart from that of Brahmins, as its candidate – the son of eastern UP veteran mafia Hari Shankar Tiwari – was a Brahmin.

BJP leaders say that what helped them both in 2014 and 2019 was the