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Party feuds and caste make election in Doab a nightmare to call

Neeraj Bajpai in Lucknow

The Ganga and the Yamuna girdle the Doab region stretching from Agra to Allahabad and capriciously change their course every once in a while -- just like the voters here who are prone to shift their loyalties, often surprising established leaders and political parties.

This time the situation is so fluid that even Union Minister Dr Murli Manohar Joshi cannot consider himself to be safe in Allahabad. During the course of his campaign, he has had to face voters's ire over the poor development of the constituency.

Lack of infrastructure, including erratic power supply, continues to be a problem in the entire Doab region. Kanpur's sitting BJP MP Captain Jagatveer Singh Drone had to face the wrath of the local people when their houses were inundated in this year's heavy downpour.

And as if constituency-specific issues were not enough, tie-ups between political parties at the local level, intra-party feuds and caste calculations make Doab a nightmare for psephologists and journalists.

For instance, in Agra, Etah, Firozabad, Jalesar, Kannauj and Mainpuri, Sakshi Maharaj is campaigning against the BJP. A two-time MP from Farrukhabad, Sakshi Maharaj, who quit the BJP after he was denied a ticket, has the ability to wean away Lodh and other backward classes votes from the party.

The lower and upper Doab regions encompassing 28 seats have multi-cornered contests this time, unlike in 1998 when most of these constituencies witnessed straight fights.

According to a UNI-C voter analysis, the BJP with a positive swing of 2.5 per cent won ten of the 14 seats last year in the lower Doab region. It polled 38.6 per cent votes. The remaining four seats were taken by the Samajwadi Party riding on a positive swing of six per cent improving on its tally of a single seat in 1996.

The Congress had suffered a mauling in 1998 losing the Pratapgarh seat and registering no gains. The Bahujan Samaj Party lost Fatehpur with a negative swing of 2.5 per cent.

Scheduled castes, at 23 per cent, form the single largest community in the lower Doab, the state's fertile plains. The Charamkars are dominant among them. Muslims and Yadavs account for more than ten per cent each and Rajputs, Kurmis and Lodhs are also present in sizeable numbers.

In Farrukhabad, state Congress president Salman Khurshid's wife, Louis Fernandes Khurshid, is pitted against Ram Baksh Verma of the BJP and the SP's Chandra Bhushan Singh.

Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav is contesting from Kannauj. The BJP has not fielded anyone against him leaving the seat to its ally, the Loktantrik Congress Party's Arvind Pratap Singh. The Congress has nominated the former raja of Tirwa, Digvijai Narain Singh, as its candidate.

The Doab region has a number of constituencies made famous by many a stalwart including Phulpur (Jawaharlal Nehru), Allahabad (where film star Amitabh Bachchan made his electoral debut), Pratapgarh, the home turf of Congress leader Raja Dinesh Singh, and Fatehpur, former prime minister V P Singh's constituency.

Etawah, Mulayam Singh Yadav's home town, amply mirrors the voters' predilection for change. No political party has been able to retain this seat for long. One of the notable winners from Etawah was Bahujan Samaj Party chief Kanshi Ram, in 1991.

The BJP scored its first victory here last year when Sukhda Mishra wrested the seat from Ram Shakya of the SP. The BSP stood third getting around 150,000 votes, while the Congress could garner only around 10,000 votes. Last year's election also saw a large chunk of Muslim and SC voters, traditional Congress supporters, move over to the BSP.

Pratapgarh is one of the few constituencies in Uttar Pradesh where voters have chosen to maintain their links with their former rulers. Raja Dinesh Singh won this seat several times. Other members of the family -- Raja Ajit Singh, Raja Abhay Pratap Singh and his daughter Rajkumari Ratna Singh -- also represented this constituency in the Lok Sabha.

It is also one among seven hyper-sensitive constituencies identified by the Election Commission in the state. The Congress has won nine out of 12 elections held here. Ratna Singh, who won the seat in 1996, lost it in 1998 when Ram Vilas Vedanti (BJP) won the seat for the first time.

Ratna Singh is once again in the fray and her main rival is Abhay Pratap Singh of the BJP.

Phulpur, once represented by Nehru, slipped out of Congress hands for the first time in 1977 in the Janata wave. Though Ram Pujan Patel wrested the seat for the party in 1984, he later joined the Janata Dal. Since then the Congress has not been able to make a comeback.

Paradoxically, Patel is back in the fray, this time as a Congress candidate. In 1998, Jang Bahadur Singh of the Samajwadi Party retained the seat defeating his nearest BJP rival Beni Madhav by a whisker. Patel, a BSP candidate in that poll, stood third.

The SP suffered a setback when Jang Bahadur Singh quit the party and was forced to nominate a new candidate, Dharam Raj Patel.

Jalesar has never been a stronghold of any political party. The Congress managed to capture this seat in 1957, 1967 and in 1984. Swamy Sureshanand won this seat in 1991 on a BJP ticket. In 1996, the party retained the seat, but lost it to the SP in 1998.

Mainpuri came into the limelight in 1996 when Mulayam Singh Yadav was elected from here. In this constituency, the SC and Ahir votes decide the election outcome. Sitting MP and former Union minister Balram Singh Yadav is again in the fray.

Chail is another constituency that returned Nehru way back in 1957. It was declared a reserved seat in 1962. With the exception of 1977, when a anti-Congress wave was quite evident all over the state, the party managed to hold the seat till 1989. Since then, the voters have been trying out different political parties. In 1991, they voted in the Janata Dal. In 1996, it was the BJP's turn, and in 1998 the SP captured the seat. Sitting MP Shailendra Kumar is again in the fray and his main rival is Dr Amrit Lal Bharti of the BJP.

Etah has become a BJP fortress since 1989. Its candidate Mahadeepak Singh notched up four consecutive victories. He is once again in the fray. This time he faces stiff competition from Devendra Singh of the SP and Rajendra Singh of the Congress.

Agra, a one-time bastion of the Congress, was captured for the BJP by Bhagwan Shankar Rawat in 1990. He has retained the seat since then. This time, film star turned politician Raj Babbar (SP) is his main opponent.

In Mathura, Chaudhary Tejveer of the BJP is trying to retain the seat.

The Hathras (reserved) constituency was under Aligarh district till 1957. Scheduled castes, constituting one fourth of the total electorate here, are the dominant voting force. Sitting MP Kishan Lal Diler (BJP) is in the fray again.

Aligarh, famous for the Aligarh Muslim University, is a predominantly Muslim town. However, the Muslim presence is restricted to the town and the four assembly segments of Barauli, Iglas, Khair and Koil have Hindu voters in large numbers. Sheila Gautam of the BJP, who has won the seat since 1989, is once again in the fray.

In Bulandshahar, sitting MP Chhatar Pal (BJP) is trying to retain the seat. Scheduled castes, one fourth of the electorate, have always dominated the election here.

Khurja (reserved) was in Bulandshahr constituency till 1957. In 1996, Ashok Pradhan won this seat on a BJP ticket and retained it in 1998. He is once again in the fray.

UNI

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