Support of upper castes, OBCs helps BJP win Rampur

Low voter turnout among Muslims and almost en masse support of some dominant other backward classes and upper castes helped the BJP win the Rampur assembly seat for the first time.

Voter turnout in the assembly bypoll in Rampur was an abysmally low 33% against nearly 57% in Khatauli. While BJP leaders said the turnout plunged due to a "boycott" of elections by a large section of the Muslim community as a mark of protest against the jailed Samajwadi Party veteran Azam Khan, the ten-time MLA from the seat, SP leaders alleged that the police and administration did not allow voters in many minority dominated areas to vote. Either way, it worked to the advantage of the BJP, even though its leaders claimed there was also an incremental increase in Muslim votes for the party owing to the popularity of the central welfare schemes and the support of some prominent local Muslim leaders like Nawab Kazim Ali who were opposed to Azam Khan.

In addition, Lodhis, a backward caste, and Vaishyas, an upper caste, voted almost en masse for the BJP, said people in the know. The two communities accounted for more than 75,000 votes, while the BJP received 81,432 votes in all. Moreover, with the BSP not contesting, the Dalit votes were divided between the BJP and the SP. "Apart from the support earned by the welfare schemes and popularity of PM Narendra Modi and CM Yogi Adityanath, our booth level organisation has also been working extremely hard in Rampur," Abhay Gupta, Rampur district president of the BJP, told ET. He said last year the BJP had won block pramukh elections in Saidnagar, a block in Rampur, for the first time since Independence, before winning the Rampur Lok Sabha seat in bypolls in June this year.