Lok Sabha polls: Mayawati's Muslim candidates might dent SP-Congress alliance prospects in UP

Lucknow: Nurturing hopes to make a clean sweep of the Muslim dominated seats in Uttar Pradesh in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, the opposition alliance of Congress and Samajwadi Party (SP) faces its biggest hurdle from the Muslim candidates put up by the BSP, which has decided to go solo, at least so far.

That BSP supremo Mayawati was in no mood to allow the SP-Congress alliance a walkover as far as claim over the Muslim votes was concerned was evident when her party decided to field Dr Mujahid Hussain from Amroha LS seat in the state.

Hussain's candidature assumed importance for the I.N.D.I.A. alliance as the Amroha seat was given to the Congress by the SP and the grand old party could field the sitting BSP MP Danish Ali, who had attended senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's ongoing 'Bharat Jodo Nyaya Yatra' earlier. The Muslims form around 35 per cent of the total electorate in Amroha LS constituency.

Danish Ali, who had contested the 2019 LS poll from Amroha as the joint candidate of SP and BSP, had defeated BJP's Kanwar Singh Tanwar by a margin of over 64 thousand votes. Any division in the Muslim votes may dent his chances this time.

BSP was planning to field a Muslim candidate from the Muslim dominated Rampur LS seat also. Although the party has not so far announced its nominee from the seat, there are speculations that Nawab Kazim Ali alias Naved Mian may get the BSP ticket. Since the Rampur seat has been a stronghold of senior SP leader Azam Khan, who was currently lodged in jail, BSP's Muslim candidate may make things difficult for the SP nominee, who in all probability be someone from Azam Khan's family.

Sources said that the BSP might field Muslim candidates from Kairana, Sambhal and some other Muslims dominated seats in the western and central regions of the state in the hope of weaving a 'Muslim-Dalit' combination to romp home.

In the Azamgarh LS by-poll, which was necessitated by SP president Akhilesh Yadav's resignation following his election to the state assembly,two years back, BSP's Shah Alam alias Guddu Jamali had polled more than 2.66 lakh votes. The division in the Muslim votes allowed BJP's Dinesh Lal Yadav alias Nirahua scraping through by a margin of eight thousand votes. SP's Dharmendra Yadav was number two in the by-poll.

BSP's electoral performance has been on the decline since 2007, when it had formed a government in UP on its own winning 206 of the 403 assembly seats and securing 30.43 per cent votes. In the 2012 assembly poll in UP, the BSP secured 25.19 per cent votes and its tally of seats came down to 80. BSP's vote share declined further to 22.23 per cent and its seats came down to 19 in the 2017 assembly poll. In the assembly poll held in UP last year BSP fared dismally and could win only one seat and its vote share stood at a meagre 12.9 per cent.

Veteran media analyst J P Shukla, said that any division in the Muslim votes would certainly hurt the prospects of the Congress-SP alliance. ''BSP's strong Muslim candidates will make a dent into the Muslim vote bank of the alliance....it can prove to be decisive on seats where the difference between the winners and runners up is not much,'' Shukla told DH.