LUCKNOW: In the third list released on Saturday, BJP announced three candidates for three crucial western UP seats including Kairana, Bulandshahr, and Nagina which is a reserved seat.
The party has named Pradeep Chaudhary from Kairana, reposed faith in its sitting MPs Dr Yashwant Singh from Nagina (SC), and Bhola Singh from Bulandshahr.
Kairana is the most crucial for the BJP because the party had lost it to Tabassum Hasan of SP who had fought on RLD ticket as a joint opposition candidate in the by-poll last year in October.
Considered to be a nerve centre of infamous exodus of hundreds of Hindu families owing to deteriorating law and order in 2016 in the backdrop during Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013, Kairana had emerged as a stronghold of the BJP in 2014 when the strong Gujjar face of the party late Hukum Singh had wrested the seat from Tabassum Hasan with a resounding margin of over five lakh votes. Hasan had contested and won the seat of Kairana for the BSP in 2009. Even in 2017, the party used the issue as a potent tool against the then ruling Samajwadi Party and included it in its manifesto as well.
By giving Kairana ticket to Pradeep Chaudhary, the sitting BJP MLA from Gangoh, one of the five assembly constituencies in the same parliamentary segment, the party has sealed the fate of late Hukum Singh’s daughter and a probable candidate for the seat. Mriganka was fielded in last year by-poll necessitated by Hukum Singh’s death but she failed to cash in on the legacy of her father and lost it to alliance candidate Hasan by a margin of 44,000 votes.
However, the political pundits believe that BJP has chosen Pradeep Chaudhury, also a Gujjar, scrupulously so as to keep the Gujjar support intact.
Chaudhary had won a by-election in 2000 from Nakur (another assembly constituency of Kairana LS seat) on RLD ticket. In 2012, he won Gangoh assembly seat for Congress and finally joined BJP to win Gangoh once again in 2017 UP assembly polls on BJP ticket.
Meanwhile, in politically volatile Bulandshahr which had recently witnessed huge unrest over the issue of cow slaughter claiming two lives including police inspector Subodh Kumar Singh and youth, the BJP has reposed faith in its sitting MP Bhola Singh.
Similarly, Dr Yashawant Singh has been repeated from high profile reserved seat of Nagina as speculations were rife that BSP chief Mayawati could have contested from there. However, Dr Yashwant Singh had shot to fame when in April last year he had written a letter to PM Modi expressing his grievances over little effort by his government towards Dalits’ emancipation.