UP bypoll results: The Bharatiya Janata Party wrested Rampur and Azamgarh from the Samajwadi Party. BJP’s Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirahua’ won Azamgarh, while saffron party candidate Ghanshyam Lodhi defeated Azam Khan’s aide Asim Raza in Rampur.
The Bharatiya Janata Party wrested Rampur and Azamgarh from the Samajwadi Party in the Lok Sabha bypolls on Sunday. The defeat in the two bastions meant that Akhilesh Yadav’s party is now reduced to just three seats in the Lok Sabha. However, the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party might have played a role in the saffron party’s win in the two Samajwadi bastions, Hindustan Times’ sister publication Live Hindustan reported.
BSP fielded its candidate in Azamgarh, leading to a split in Muslim votes while it opted out of Rampur to ensure a direct BJP vs Samajwadi Party clash in a seat where Dalit votes do wield influence.
In 2019, SP and BSP had contested the Lok Sabha elections together as part of the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ alliance. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav had won Azamgarh by bagging 6.21 lakh votes. His party colleague Azam Khan had won Rampur. The Muslim and Dalit votes had played a crucial role in their victories.
Cut to 2022. Both the parties contested elections alone. Mayawati fielded Shah Alam alias Guddu Jamali from Azamgarh. A Muslim candidate, Alam has considerable influence in Azamgarh and other nearby areas. As a result, he managed to get a large share of Muslim and Dalit votes.
Guddu Jamali bagged 2,66,210 votes while Akhilesh’s cousin and SP candidate Dharmendra Yadav got 3,04,089 votes. On the other hand, BJP candidate Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirahua’ bagged 3,12,768 votes. Had Jamali not been fielded, Yadav would have won the seat with a comfortable margin. The SP had swept all the assembly segments in Azamgarh in the recently assembly polls.
In Rampur, the BSP didn’t field any candidate against SP’s Asim Raza and BJP candidate Ghanshyam Lodhi. It was expected that the saffron party would get a majority of Dalit votes, and the result isn’t surprising. Lodhi defeated the SP candidate by 42,192 votes.
