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    SP-BSP-RLD alliance faces litmus test in BJP bastion West UP

    Synopsis

    BJP had swept this communally sensitive region in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and in the 2017 assembly polls.

    SP-BSP
    Ajit Singh has already begun his campaign, saying “BJP came to power in 2014 through the Muzzafarnagar riots and will go out of power starting from Muzzafarnagar in 2019.”
    New Delhi: The 16 seats of West Uttar Pradesh going to the polls in the first two phases will be crucial for the opposition alliance whose strength will be fully tested here with Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) fighting 10 seats and the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) fighting three seats each.

    Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had swept this communally sensitive region in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and in the 2017 assembly polls. The ‘unknown phenomenon’ of transfer of SP votes to BSP will also be put to its first test here as the BJP has been claiming that Yadav voters will not vote for a BSP candidate.

    The Congress, with Jyotiraditya Scindia as general secretary in charge of West UP, is still to begin its campaign in the region and the party may be in the running in only a couple of seats like Saharanpur and Nagina in the first two phases.

    The extent of BJP’s dominance in West UP can be gauged from the fact that one of the biggest victory margins in the country in the 2014 elections were notched up by VK Singh from Ghaziabad (5.6 lakh votes) and Sanjeev Baliyan from Muzzafarnagar (4.01 lakh votes).

    This time, though, it could be a very different story with BJP in a tight spot in Muzzafarnagar as RLD’s Ajit Singh is the alliance candidate. Ajit Singh has already begun his campaign, saying “BJP came to power in 2014 through the Muzzafarnagar riots and will go out of power starting from Muzzafarnagar in 2019.”

    Another trouble seat for the BJP will be Saharanpur where Raghav Lakhnapal won by a margin of 65,000 votes in 2014 and faces Imran Masood of the Congress and meat trader Haji Fazul-ul-Rehman of the BSP.

    BJP is now banking on a division among the six lakh Muslim votes in Saharanpur constituency to win. BJP’s Mahesh Sharma is also in a tight spot in the Noida seat where BSP is expected to put up a strong candidate.

    BSP’s Haji Yakoob Qureshi is said to be in pole position in the Meerut seat while sitting MP from Kairana, Tabassum Hassan, or her MLA son Nahid Hassan could again prove to be a tough opponent for BJP’s Mriganka Singh from here.

    BSP is also eyeing to snatch the Aligarh seat from the BJP and has already declared Ajit Baliyan as its candidate. Meanwhile, a new lady entrant to the Congress, Om Vati, is expected to be the party’s candidate from Nagina, a reserved constituency.

    There is speculation that Mayawati will be the BSP candidate from this seat. BJP’s strength in West UP has been Jats who have strongly backed the party in 2014 and 2017. With RLD fighting on all its three allotted seats in the first two phases, the loyalty of Jats towards the BJP is also on test.


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