In battle for Ambedkar Nagar bastion, BSP on back foot as it faces turncoats on BJP, SP sides

The Ambedkar Nagar Lok Sabha constituency has always been a stronghold of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), with its supremo Mayawati creating the Ambedkar Nagar district in 1995 when she became the Uttar Pradesh chief minister for the first time.

Mayawati won from the constituency, formerly known as the Akbarpur Lok Sabha seat, thrice between 1998 and 2004. The BSP lost it to the Samajwadi Party (SP) in a bypoll subsequently, but wrested it back in the 2009 elections.

The party lost the seat to the BJP in 2014, but again won it back in the 2019 elections.

This time too, the BSP’s influence appears to be omnipresent in the Ambedkar Nagar seat, albeit in a different way — the SP and the BJP both have fielded former BSP leaders.

The incumbent MP Ritesh Pandey had won the seat in 2019 on the BSP’s ticket by about 96,000 votes against Mukut Bihari of the BJP. Pandey, however, switched to the BJP in February this year, saying that “he had almost lost link with the BSP and its top leadership”.

Pandey, who had also won the seat in 2009 as a BSP candidate, has been fielded by the BJP this time.

The SP’s Katehari MLA Lalji Verma, who was with the BSP until 2021, is the party’s nominee in Ambedkar Nagar.

After Pandey’s crossover to the BJP, the BSP has fielded former Jalalpur Nagar Palika chairman Qamar Hayat Ansari as its candidate from the constituency.

Each of these candidates have been reaching out to the electorate with unique pitches — and the contest seems to be close.

While Pandey is seeking votes with a promise of bringing industrial growth to the region now that he is on the ruling party’s side, Verma is seeking votes citing his old connection with the belt as a six-term MLA as well as a former minister. Amidst this, the BSP is