In the upcoming by-election for the Milkipur assembly seat in Ayodhya district of Uttar Pradesh, more than the question of victory or defeat, a bigger concern is how the Election Commission will ensure free and fair voting.
Will it be similar to the last by-elections of nine assembly seats where complaints had come to the fore of the police preventing supporters of the opponent parties from voting at gunpoint? If yes, then what will be the result in the Milkipur seat, which is at the moment held by the Samajwadi Party?
Although election officials are assuring the voters that there will be no compromise on the fairness of voting, a section of experts is assessing the situation and possibilities in the light of the previous by-elections.
In a recent press conference, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav was asked about the steps his party would take, if voters are stopped at gunpoint in this by-election too.
Responding to the media query, Yadav called it a major issue and said that he would ask his party workers to decide whatever they deem fit at the time.
He also requested the journalists not to highlight the invincibility of his party’s Pichda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak (PDA) equation, otherwise he said the government would pit uniformed personnel forward to win the election, which is to be held on February 5.
Terming the Milkipur polls as the the ‘biggest by-election’ of the country, Yadav emphasised that the results of the election will have a serious impact on the many possibilities of the democracy.
On the other hand, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) considers this by-election crucial from another perspective and is linking it to its prestige. Ayodhya’s mayor and BJP leader Mahant Girishpati Tripathi has called it more important than the Delhi assembly elections in the sense that it is a matter of pride for the BJP because it is linked to Ayodhya.
Interestingly, neither the SP nor the BJP has fielded any star candidate in this by-election. In the last by-poll of nine assembly seats, which was considered a semi-final of the 2027 assembly elections, the BJP had won seven seats.
Focusing on ‘rectification of errors’
Meanwhile, many experts have expressed an apprehension that the news of alleged rigging in the previous by-election will discourage voters, leading to a slump in the voting percentage. But it would not be to the advantage of a specific party, they believe.
According to this theory, the supporters of the opposite camp will not leave their homes fearing that the police might not let them reach the booth, while the ruling party’s supporters might also stay at home believing that their party will win anyway.
Meanwhile, the BJP has modified the rhetoric of its election campaign a bit. Earlier its leaders used to urge its voters to take revenge for the defeat of Ram bhakts in the Lok Sabha elections on the Faizabad seat (which also includes Ayodhya), but now it is also talking about ‘rectification of errors’, citing the elections in Haryana and Maharashtra where the saffron party emerged victorious.
As a result, the BJP, which is still mainly depending on the issue of the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya and the return of the Treta Yug in the Milkipur bypoll as well, the party is also relying on welfare schemes of its government such as free ration.
On the contrary, the SP hopes that the services rendered by Faizabad MP Awadhesh Prasad to the regional voters during his previous stints as a minister and MLA will be of great help in turning the result in favour of its candidate.
Prasad, who was elected from this seat in the 2022 assembly polls on an SP ticket, became the MP of Faizabad in the last Lok Sabha elections. After the seat fell vacant following his resignation, his son Ajit Prasad has been nominated by the party as the candidate.
Also Read: For the BJP, Attempts to Review Ayodhya Loss Turning Out to Be an Embarrassment
According to several analysts, both the SP and the BJP are in troubled waters in the present contest but for different reasons, with none of them being confident of a definite victory. However, each party is trying to exploit the other’s weaknesses for its own good. They are also reaching out to the particular sub-castes of the candidates. All the candidates are Dalits as the assembly constituency is reserved for the Scheduled Caste community.
While the BJP is asking the voters to reject the SP candidate on the charges of nepotism, the SP has tagged BJP candidate Chandrabhanu Paswan as an outsider because he is not a local resident and hails from a neighbouring constituency.
He is also facing the displeasure and indifference of eight or nine other claimants for the BJP ticket for the seat. These local leaders did not even attend his nomination procession, even though seven ministers of the Yogi government participated in the rally.
Discontent in BJP over ticket distribution
Among the claimants who are miffed over not being handed the ticket for the Milkipur seat is former BJP MLA Baba Gorakhnath who was defeated by Prasad in the 2022 assembly elections. Gorakhnath had then filed a petition against him in the Allahabad High Court. After becoming an MP, Awadhesh left the MLA post, but due to the pending petition, the Election Commission did not conduct the by-election for this seat with the by-elections of the other nine vacant assembly seats of the state, which were conducted in November last year.
Later, Gorakhnath withdrew his petition from the High Court, assuming that if the by-election is held, his party will offer him the ticket. But when the schedule of the by-election was announced, the BJP declared Paswan as its candidate.
This decision, taken on the pretext of an internal survey, was also shocking in the sense that shortly prior to it, a Dalit officer of a department, allegedly close to a minister of the state, applied for voluntary retirement and got big advertisements published in local newspapers in the hope of getting a BJP ticket.
But neither of them had their wish fulfilled. Now, amid the news of many other contenders apart from these two who are upset over not being handed a ticket, SP leaders claim that even if they do not rebel but only show indifference, they will cause great harm to the BJP.
Will the anti-government votes get divided?
Though this development is slightly worrisome for the BJP, it feels that SP rebel Suraj Chaudhary, fielded by Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan’s Azad Samaj Party, will make its task easy by splitting the anti-government vote share. The SP will no longer benefit from the BSP’s absence from the fray.
But the SP disagrees and claims that the voters are sensible and will vote only for its candidate as they know that the candidate is capable of defeating the BJP.
Meanwhile, Congress is openly supporting SP because Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, who had earlier welcomed the victory of Awadhesh Prasad from Faizabad seat in the Lok Sabha elections.
On the other hand, Jayant Chaudhary and Omprakash Rajbhar’s parties, Rashtriya Lok Dal and Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party respectively, are supporting the BJP.
According to Faizabad MP Prasad, the level of anti-incumbency for the BJP is so high that the more the Chief Minister visits this area, the steeper will be the decline in BJP’s vote share.
On the other hand, former SP chief Yadav has assured the farmers of Ayodhya, who are the victims of land acquisition without proper compensation, that if the SP government comes to power in 2027, it will not acquire any land and if any such acquisition does take place for some reason, it will offer six times the compensation. The purpose of this announcement is believed to be to appease the farmers of Milkipur along with Ayodhya.
Constituency has a tendency of not getting carried away in ‘waves’
Incidentally, the voters of the Milkipur assembly seat, which came into existence in 1967, have an old habit of not getting carried away by any ‘wave’. Even in the golden days of Janata Party and Janata Dal, they did not let the parties register their maiden victories. In 1977, when the Janata Party won a sweeping victory across the country, this seat had elected Congress-supported Mitra Sen of Communist Party of India and kept backing him in the next two elections as well.
Earlier, the voters in the constituency had expressed faith in Congress in 1967, Bharatiya Jana Sangh in 1969 and again in Congress in 1974. In 1989, it again returned to Congress. Though it obliged the BJP in the Ram Mandir wave of 1991, but made it wait till 2017, i.e. for more than two and a half decades, for the next victory. In 1996, it had once elected Mitra Sen on an SP ticket.
In the next two elections, his son Anand sen represented the constituency first on an SP ticket and then on a BSP ticket. In 2012, when it was reserved for Scheduled Castes and SP’s Awadhesh Prasad won. He later lost the next election to BJP’s Baba Gorakhnath but won again in 2022.
Prasad is the second MLA from the constituency to reach the Lok Sabha. Before him, Mitra Sen had climbed this ladder and reached the Lok Sabha thrice. By-elections were held on this seat also in 1998 and 2004, with the SP being victorious in both the occasions.
The writer is a senior journalist.
Translated from the Hindi original – published first on The Wire Hindi – by Naushin Rehman.
