Lok Sabha polls 2019: Why Bundelkhand is set for a thriller

Sandeep Nagayach, owner of Mahoba’s Ekta Palace Hotel on Ram Katha Marg, spent the last month campaigning tirelessly for BJP till elections were held on April 29. But it has been difficult, he says, to garner support for sitting MP Kunwer Pushpendra Chandel, who is seeking a second term from the Hamirpur Lok Sabha constituency in the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh.

“Chandel has done nothing in the last five years and has remained largely inaccessible. With BJP fielding him again, even with Narendra Modi’s popularity, it’s a tough election,” Nagayach says.





On UP’s poll pitch, almost entirely BJP’s to retain or to lose, local party units have been desperately trying to turn the attention away from the anti-incumbency sentiment against sitting MPs so that voters keep their eyes on the big picture. The focus, like it was in 2014, is on Modi, whose personal popularity remains high.

But there are hurdles along the way. The caste arithmetic of the SP-BSP mahagathbandhan has resulted in the consolidation of votes that were fragmented in 2014 and, coupled with Congress fielding a large number of candidates only to play spoiler in BJP’s victory march, could translate into an edgeof-the-seat contest in a large number of constituencies.

The gathbandhan started off on a shaky note in the first phase in western UP — critics said the alliance won’t click a second time after Mulayam Singh Yadav and Kanshi Ram’s social engineering experiment in the early 1990s — but has since come into its own. Two public events were key to this. The first was when Mayawati, Mulayam and Akhilesh Yadav shared the stage at a rally in Mainpuri. The second, and arguably more powerful visually, was MP Dimple Yadav, Akhilesh’s wife, touching Mayawati’s feet at another rally. The message to the gathbandhan voters was clear.

The effect is visible on the ground. In drought-prone Bundelkhand, for instance, facing an impending drinking water crisis, polls have been reduced to caste arithmetic. “Local development issues like drought management, poverty and farm suicides are on the backburner and all that seems to matter is caste,” says Ajay Srivastava of the Sai Jyoti Sansthan in Lalitpur.

BJP has been hard at work to blunt the caste factor. It has focused instead on nationalism, the Balakot air strikes, and the impact of Ujjwala in rural homes. “To counter the anti-incumbency factor against the local sitting MP, we speak about Modiji’s work, and how he has put Pakistan in its place. We are confident this will work to our advantage,” says Virendra Singh, a BJP booth worker in Kanpur.

But it’s not anti-incumbency against MPs alone; there is infighting in the BJP ranks too. In Banda, which polls on May 6, Congress’ Bal Kumar Patel, dacoit Dadua’s brother, is pitted against BJP’s R K Patel. But there are protests by BJP’s sitting MP Bhairon Prasad Mishra, who was benched to accommodate Patel. The division of the Patel vote, along with a sulking MP, appears to have given gathbandhan’s Shyama Charan Gupta a leg-up.

In Kanpur, BJP’s Satyadev Pachauri is locked in a direct contest against Congress’ Sriprakash Jaiswal. The gathbandhan candidate here, Ram Kumar Nishad, is a political lightweight. Pachauri was chosen over Satish Mahana, UP’s industries minister, a decision that upset many within the party. “I am a dedicated BJP voter, so my vote will be for Modi. But BJP could have had a better chance with Mahana,” says Arvind Singh, a betel vendor in Kanpur.

Across Bundelkhand’s four constituencies — Jalaun, Hamirpur, Banda and Jhansi, where SP and BSP have shared two seats each — Congress candidates are looking to largely dent BJP’s vote bank. In Jalaun, a reserved seat that polled in the fourth phase, two-term MP Brijlal Khabri could queer the pitch for BJP’s Bhanu Pratap Verma. In Hamirpur, Congress’ Pritam Singh Lodhi is expected to eat into BJP’s traditional Lodhi vote as Chandel fights a tight contest against gathbandhan’s Dilip Singh, another Thakur.

A tight contest is also brewing in Mirzapur, which polls on May 19, between Laliteshpati Tripathi (Congress) and BJP ally Anupriya Patel of Apna Dal (S).

SP-BSP, however, has stayed combative against Congress. “INC is fighting its own election. The claims of helping SP-BSP-RLD is mere posturing to gain relevance in UP,” said Prof Sudhir Panwar, SP’s national spokesman.

Congress’ CLP leader Ajay Kumar Lallu said, “There’s a strong undercurrent against BJP. Dalits, minorities and OBCs have come together, so BJP is largely dependent on upper caste votes.”