Mainpuri: Dimple Yadav is confident

MAINPURI: The BJP juggernaut in Uttar Pradesh will meet its most challenging obstacle in Mainpuri, the most fiercely guarded bastion of the Samajwadi Party and the Yadav family that the ruling party has never breached.

The seat has been a metaphor of sorts for the late SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav’s national ambitions. After serving the state as chief minister for two terms, he first won this seat in 1996 and became the defence minister. Since then, the SP has held the seat and, barring two terms, the MPs have been from the Yadav family.

Most voters across assembly constituents are predicting a sweep for the SP candidate, Yadav’s daughter-in-law and sitting MP Dimple Yadav, who won the seat in 2022 in the bypolls held after Mulayam’s demise.
“Unless they tamper with the votes and the (electronic voting) machine, they will not be able to win fair and square, be it Modi or Yogi. Netaji’s legacy will be upheld even though the margin may reduce to say, about 2 lakh,” said 70-year old Subhash Gupta, an SP supporter, even as he predicted a Modi win at the Centre. A youth working in his shop said, “Why waste your vote here when you know who is winning. But at the Centre, I prefer Modi.”

The BJP has fielded state tourism minister Jaiveer Singh, whose victory in the Mainpuri (city) assembly seat in 2022 by defeating a two-time SP MLA has buoyed the party about its prospects for the Lok Sabha election too. The party insists that the “sympathy wave” of 2022 has waned and the party is an equal contender in this election. CM Yogi Adityanath held a roadshow here on Thursday. “Dimple ji is roaming door to door whereas there used to be a time when they would just do a rally and go. She will be asked what she has done since 2022 when she was made the MP. June 4 will throw up startling results,” Vishal Valmiki, BJP district general secretary of Mainpuri, told ET.

On the SP’s side is not just the legacy factor (Yadavs’ native village Saifai, developed by the party as a “model” village housing an international cricket stadium and an airstrip, also falls within this Lok Sabha constituency) and the favourable Yadav-Shakya caste factor. There is also wide disenchantment with the Agnipath scheme, not to say the all-pervasive issue of unemployment. While the BJP is strong in the city area due to the dominance of upper castes like Thakurs and in the mixed Bhogaon assembly, the SP is strong in three out of five mostly rural assembly segments. Besides, Shivpal Yadav’s appeal runs high in his assembly seat, Jaswantnagar, where he is still addressed as “mantri ji”, years after the SP lost power in the state.
The BJP is seeking votes in the name of Modi, while also hoping the Ram temple and an attempt to divide the loyal Yadav base of about 400,000, by stoking resentment and fatigue against the Yadav family, will work in its favour and add to the numerically strong Thakur and upper caste base that supports the party. Crucially, it is shoring up the support of some non-Yadav other backward classes (OBCs) like Lodhis and a section of Shakyas, the second most dominant voter bloc.