BJP’s singer-candidate Dinesh Lal Nirahua crowd puller in region

The politics of social justice appears to be in full play in Azamgarh and the battle is between two Yadavs — the Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh and Dinesh Lal “Nirahua”, the “super star” of the Bhojpuri film industry who is the principal challenger in this eastern Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha seat.
Nirahua, in the last one week after his entry into politics as the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate, has emerged as a crowd puller during election campaigns, and although his celebrity status may not translate into votes, his presence carries its own political significance, not just in Azamgarh but also in neighbouring parliamentary seats.

Azamgarh, which is near constituencies such as Ghosi, Ghazipur, Sant Kabir Nagar, Ambedkar Nagar, Jaunpur and Bansgaon, has a good proportion of both OBC and Most Backward Class voters, and had virtually remained untouched in the Modi wave of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and the 2017 assembly polls.

While SP patriarch Mulayam Singh won this seat in 2014, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the SP, which fought the 2017 assembly polls separately, bagged all the five assembly seats falling under its jurisdiction. “I am proud of my association with the BJP. Yadav ka matlab Akhilesh-Bhakt Nahi hota (Yadav does not mean loyalty to SP chief Akhilesh Yadav). Yadav hamahu ke vote dihan (Yadavs will vote for me too),” Nirahua told ET, in an indirect reference to the tough task he faces in making a dent into the SP’s Yadav vote-bank.

Perhaps, the BJP is banking on a strategy that wants to eat into the BSP-SP alliance’s vote bank of prosocial justice groups in this region, and Nirahua is key for the BJP not only in Azamgarh but also in the region. Nirahua’s statement clearly shows that the BJP has realised what it up against in a constituency like Azamgarh, where more than 65% of the population comprises Muslims, Yadavs and Dalits, the core supporters of the SP and BSP.