Kairana bypoll: How BJP plans to ensure no repeat of Gorakhpur, Phulpur debacles

With 33 per cent Muslim, 10 per cent Jat and 15 per cent Dalit voters, the Kairana bypoll would appear to be a cakewalk for the RLD-SP-BSP combine but the BJP says it has learnt a lesson from the losses in Gorakhpur and Phulpur and is making all-out efforts to bring its voters to polling booths on May 28.

The upcoming bypoll might have been swung by the Jats, who backed the BJP in western UP in both 2014 and 2017 polls, but the huge sugarcane dues in the region and Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal latching onto this issue have increased the BJP’s problems.

So much so that chief minister Yogi Adityanath, in his first rally in the constituency on Tuesday, made it a point to give an assurance that the state government would come out with a package for sugarcane farmers if sugar mills were unable to clear their dues.


Begum Tabassum Hasan, the RLD candidate backed by SP, said Jats were angry with the BJP. “This will be the first time that Jats, Muslims and Dalits will vote together for us. There is no contest. This will dissolve the bitterness of the earlier riots,” she told ET.

BJP leaders, however, said that Jats would not align with Muslims just because SP and RLD were together, especially given their bloody history of the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots. Adityanath made this point on Tuesday.

“SP may have given a candidate on loan to RLD but Akhilesh Yadav has no courage to come here and campaign because his hands are stained with the black mark of the Muzaffarnagar riots. He is firing from the RLD’s shoulder. Do not come in the net of these rioters,” he said.

Besides, BJP leaders said BSP is not active in Kairana after party chief Mayawati had said her cadres would not play an active role in this bypoll. The BJP is also banking on the appeal of the ‘Gram Swaraj Abhiyan’ which is aimed at saturating Dalit villages with central schemes.

Unlike the bypolls in Gorakhpur and Phulpur, the BJP is determined to ensure a high turnout in Kairana bypoll by ensuring that its supporters among other backward classes or OBCs and Dalits cast their votes.

BJP cadres are seeking to generate sympathy for Mriganka Singh, who is fighting for the legacy of her late father, Hukum Singh.