Ghosi bypoll to see first INDIA-BJP clash in UP

Lucknow: The stage is set for the first electoral showdown between the BJP and an INDIA bloc constituent in Uttar Pradesh, with leaders of both sides going all out to drum up support for their candidates for the September 5 Ghosi assembly bypoll. The Congress and the Left parties have not only extended support to the Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate but are also campaigning for him, in accordance with the spirit of the new opposition togetherness ahead of next year’s general election.

Though not a major force in Uttar Pradesh, Arvind Kejriwal’s AAP is also drumming up support for the SP nominee. The BJP’s Dara Singh Chauhan, the sitting MLA who crossed over to the saffron party from the SP and resigned from the seat, is seeking re-election.

The SP has fielded Sudhakar Singh. Singh has got support from the Congress, the CPI(M) and the CPI(ML)-Liberation.

Interestingly, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, who had given campaigning for the other two prestigious bypolls in the Rampur and the Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats last year a miss, addressed an election meeting in Ghosi. He had said this election would bring a change in the country’s politics.

Without Yadav at the helm of its campaign and facing an aggressive campaign by the BJP, the SP lost the Lok Sabha bypolls in Rampur and Azamgarh -- once considered its strongholds.

The SP chief had won from the Azamgarh seat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections while party veteran Azam Khan retained Rampur in a tight finish.

The pair vacated their seats after successfully contesting in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections in March 2022. Realising the importance of the concerted efforts required at the ground level to challenge the BJP, Yadav, who has been actively involved in activities of the INDIA alliance, said, “The parties once against us are now supporting the SP. We thank them for supporting the ‘samajwadis’.

This is an important fight. This will be your (voters’) big decision as the bypoll’s outcome will bring a change in the politics of the country.” Yadav also underlined that such an election would hardly have been seen in Uttar Pradesh, where “all boundaries from caste to religion were broken for the SP candidate”. Though the Left parties have remained on the fringes of Uttar Pradesh politics for a long time, their influence in the area has remained important.