The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appears to be looking towards bahubalis to help it solve the Purvanchal puzzle in the ongoing Lok Sabha election. Often attacked by the Opposition for seeing the tainted figures through a communal prism, the three strongmen the ruling party is beholden to belong to the Rajput caste, a community that has given the party some tough time at the hustings during this election.
Troubleshooters worked overtime to rein in Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiyya, who has influence over Pratapgarh and Kaushambi. Raja Bhaiyya had a meeting with Home Minister Amit Shah in Bengaluru. The party also sent Union Minister Sanjeev Balyan to seek his support but Raja Bhaiyya, after mulling over the offer, told his supporters to exercise free will this time.
The following day, workers of his Jansatta Dal Loktantrik raised slogans of ‘Akhilesh Yadav zindabad’ and ‘Raja Bhaiyya zindabad‘ at a rally of Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Pushpendra Saroj in Kunda, the epicentre of Raja Bhaiyya’s politics. Raja Bhaiyya had a long undeclared alliance with the SP, so much so that for two decades, the party did not field a candidate against the political heavyweight. This changed before the 2019 Lok Sabha election when Raja Bhaiyya voted for the BJP in a Rajya Sabha poll, leaving SP president Akhilesh Yadav enraged.
