In Ayodhya's Milkipur, BJP fields local SC worker against SP MP's Son Ajit Prasad

The BJP on Tuesday announced local party worker Chandrabhan Paswan as its candidate for the crucial Milkipur assembly bypoll in Uttar Pradesh against Ajit Prasad of the Samajwadi Party (SP).

The seat got vacant after the sitting SP MLA Awadhesh Prasad won the Faizabad Lok Sabha seat in the 2024 general election. The constituency didn't go to the polls last year owing to a petition filed by former BJP MLA Baba Gorakhnath. With Gorakhnath withdrawing his petition in the court, voting will be held in Milkipur on February 5 along with the Delhi polls.

BJP candidate Chandrabhan Prasad belongs to the Pasi community, which has the highest population of 60,000 among the Scheduled Caste (SC) voters. Prasad's wife is a Zila Panchayat member and he is currently in the BJP district team. The SP has fielded Faizabad MP Awadhesh Prasad's son Ajit Prasad, who also belongs to the Pasi community.


Milkipur is an SC reserved seat and before 2012 it was known as Sohawal. Since 2012, Awadhesh Prasad has won this seat twice, in 2012 and 2022, while losing once, in 2017, to the BJP.

During the Lok Sabha election, Prasad got sizable votes of the SC community, especially Pasis, from the seat.

The Pasi community accounts for more than 60 per cent of SC voters in Milkipur.

By fielding a Pasi candidate, the BJP wants to secure votes of the community. Apart from the Pasi community, there are around 55,000 Yadav voters and 25,000 minority voters in the constituency.

Seven state ministers, including Swatantra Dev Singh, Surya Pratap Shahi and JPS Rathor, have been deployed in the assembly constituency and the leaders will camp there till February 3, the last day for campaigning.