SP may wrest Azamgarh stronghold back as key Muslim leader crosses sides

The Samajwadi Party is haunted by the memories of the defeat in its bastion of Azamgarh in a bypoll in June 2022, which was necessitated after party chief Akhilesh Yadav vacated the Lok Sabha constituency to become Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly. This time, though, the party seems to be in a better position – after having managed to get the “main factor” for their defeat in the bypoll on their side.

The bypoll defeat had come just two months after the SP won all the Assembly segments falling under the Azamgarh constituency, as well as all five under the neighbouring Lalganj, in the March 2022 state elections.

The SP believed the reason for the defeat of its candidate Dharmendra Yadav was the presence of Shah Alam a.k.a Guddu Jamali on the BSP ticket, splitting the Muslim vote and helping the BJP’s candidate, Bhojpuri film actor Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirahua’, win.

Now, Jamali is on the SP’s side, having crossed over in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and got an MLC berth.

For the Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat, which votes on May 25, the SP has again fielded Dharmendra, who even when he lost in the June 2022 bypoll loss got 3.04 lakh votes, finishing just 8,000 votes behind Nirahua. Jamali got 2.66 lakh votes.

The BJP has repeated Nirahua while the BSP has fielded Mashahood Ahmad, whose wife was earlier the state general secretary of the Congress Minority Cell. However, with the BSP almost absent on the ground, the contest is essentially between Dharmendra and Nirahua again.

An SP stronghold

Won by SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav in 2014 and party chief Akhilesh in 2019, Azamgarh is a strong seat for the party due to the presence of a high number of Muslims and Yadavs, the SP’s core vote bank, in the constituency.