“Vote transfer karna mazaak nahin hai (it’s not a joke to attempt vote transfer),” Shivlal Yadav, who has come to sell his vegetable produce at Rakesh Kumar Agrahari’s stock yard in Jaunpur’s Shambhoganj Bazaar, says.
Mr. Yadav’s remarks allude to what he believes is confusion among the voters of Jaunpur, who had thought that Srikala Reddy’s candidature from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had settled matters for them. As the wife of local mafia don-turned-politician Dhananjay Singh, Ms. Reddy was the instant favourite in the constituency, with her husband enjoying a Robin Hood-like image of derring-do and indiscriminate charity cutting across caste lines.
Jaunpur, currently held by the BSP, which won it in an alliance with the Samajwadi Party (SP) in 2019, was one seat where samikaran (equations, of caste) did not mean much.
