Samajwadi Party (SP) and the BJP are both using secularism as a bait to capture votes in Azamgarh. Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speech here on Thursday argued that the SP has been exploiting communal schisms for electoral benefit, while the SP said the BJP’s “politics of hatred” has torn the social fabric of the State.
“Chanting Pakistan, Pakistan for so long, we have been reduced to Pakistan. Look at our inflation, it is comparable to theirs now,” Suraj Bhan Ram, an auto driver at Belariyaganj, said with disgust at the current political narrative. Mr. Ram belongs to the Chamar caste, a Scheduled Caste community in Uttar Pradesh. He said people have little money to spare and this in turn has reduced the number of passengers he gets each day.
At an election rally in Lalganj, Azamgarh, Mr. Modi on Thursday said the district had become infamous as the breeding ground of terrorism, with the SP providing political cover to the “sleeper cells”. “Under the cover of secularism, the SP had been indulging in vote bank politics,” he said. He reiterated his earlier comments on redirecting the reservation quota and redistributing wealth to the SP-Congress’ ‘vote bank’.
Around the same time as Mr. Modi’s address, several kilometers away at a mango orchard in Gopalpur, SP candidate Dharmendra Yadav and singers kept the restive crowd entertained with songs extolling communal harmony and blaming the BJP for driving a wedge between Hindus and Muslims.
Mr. Yadav, who came four hours late, delivered a seven-minute speech that began on a sombre note. He said the country is going through an ‘arduous time’, exhorting voters to stay united to bring the INDIA bloc to power in Delhi.
“If by some misfortune the BJP returns to power, believe me, we will not get another chance to cast our vote,” he said.
Mr. Yadav said the incidents of paper leak is an organised effort by the State government to not provide government jobs to the Indian youth, paving the way for more privatisation.
“Babaji (Yogi Adityanath) makes tall claims about maintaining law and order. But has his bulldozer ever run over anyone accused of leaking exam papers? He won’t do that, because he himself is involved in the paper leak. They leak papers so that they do not have to fill the vacancies,” he said.
While he steered away any communal rhetoric, speakers before him hectored against the BJP for playing up the religious divide.
Mr. Yadav fought the 2022 bypoll from Azamgarh after the seat fell vacant when SP chief Akhilesh Yadav resigned and chose his berth in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly after the party’s defeat in the Assembly polls. Mr. Yadav, however, lost the byelection by a margin of little over 8,000 votes. Since then, the SP has taken corrective steps, including bringing on board the BSP’s Guddu Jamali who in the 2022 by-election polled 2.6 lakh votes. This seat is believed to be a strong turf for the SP because of the Yadav and Muslim vote bank.
Dalit voters, who form the third biggest bloc, though, often hold the key. In this election, there has been confusion in the BSP’s ranks with the party twice changing its candidate too close to the election.
Pappu Kanojia, an SC voter, blamed the Modi government for his plight. An electrician who has worked temporarily in seven countries, Mr. Kanojia said he has not been able to find a footing since the COVID pandemic. Mr. Kanojia is upfront about his choice and said, “I voted for the BJP in 2014 and BSP in 2019. While BSP today is irrelevant, there is no point voting for the BJP either. Look at the Prime Minister’s speeches, they are only about Ram Temple. Has he delivered a single speech on providing employment?”
