UP Assembly Election 2012: SP candidates hopes to cash in on politics of matrimony

UTTAR PRADESH: Call it politics of matrimony but 'Dadda' (elder brother) Deepanarayan Singh, sitting MLA of Samajwadi Party, is banking on this to help see him through the caste cauldron against his Congress and BJP rivals in the assembly polls here.

Deepnarayan Singh, alias Dipak Yadav, has built for himself a constituency many in politics would not have thought of--group marriage.

He faces Raja Ranjit Singh Yadav of Congress and BJP's Tikaram Patel.

The group marriage concept has some sort of acceptability in entire Bundelkand region spanning Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Acute poverty is considered the main reason for popularity of this type of marriage particularly among the downtrodden classes.

Yadav, however, denies any political motive behind it. Yadav has been the national president of SP's youth wing Lohia Vahini. He started his politics with Congress and was the youngest student union president of Bundelkhand college from NSUI in 1980s.

Having married off almost 700 girls from different castes in his assembly segment, Yadav, called Dadda (elder brother) has extended his reach to a large number of households.

"The logic simple. Marriage of one girl brings in him contact with at least 50 of relatives and going by the number of marriages he has got done, he is personally known to the 35,000 people. All of them may not be voters or voting for him but that definitely gives a personal touch in his relationship to these families," says Dharmendra Kumar in Jhansi.