Why BJP has hit choppy waters in Bareilly, a safe UP seat

Like the last three decades, seasoned BJP MP Santosh Gangwar had been preparing for the past several months to contest from his bastion Bareilly in the coming Lok Sabha polls. But last month, when the party announced its list on the day of Holi, the 75-year-old’s supporters were shocked to find that he had been dropped and instead, a former state minister who lost the Assembly polls two years ago had been fielded.

As the BJP looks to increase its Lok Sabha seat tally in Uttar Pradesh — one of the few Hindi heartland states where it has the scope to do so — the decision to drop Gangwar has thrown its re-election prospects into uncertainty in a constituency that is considered one of its safest seats. Bareilly votes in the third phase on May 7.

Gangwar, a former Union Minister, has won Bareilly since 1989, with the sole exception of 2009 when the Congress bagged it. But internal differences led the BJP to drop him and opt for former state minister and ex-MLA Chhatrapal Singh Gangwar, 68, who is being viewed as an “outsider” even though he is from Bareilly district and belongs to the same Other Backward Class (OBC) Kurmi community as the veteran leader. This has angered the Gangwars, a farming community that is the largest and most dominant OBC group in the region and has over three lakh votes in Bareilly.

Rubbing salt into the community’s wound and exposing the faultlines within the party, earlier this month an audio clip went viral in which a person believed to be Bareilly Mayor Umesh Gautam was heard saying, without naming anyone, “Abhi toh patak patak kar maarenge (He will be targeted now).” The Indian Express did not independently verify the authenticity of the clip.

Gautam, who is from the Brahmin community, was one of the