KARHAL (Mainpuri): Victory of Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav in his debut battle from Karhal in Mainpuri looks certain. With his native village Saifai just 4 km away, this is his home turf in the true sense. But the BJP has moved strategically to make it more than a fight by fielding Union minister of state for law and order and party’s Agra MP SP Singh Baghel. The assembly segment will go to the polls in the third phase on February 20.
‘Netaji’ (Mulayam) has studied at Jain Inter College of Karhal and later taught here briefly as an assistant teacher in 1963. After his first victory in assembly election from adjoining Jaswantnagar in Etawah district in 1967, Mulayam’s hard work converted Etawah and Mainpuri into his family bastions. Currently, Mulayam is MP from Mainpuri.
Situated along the Lucknow-Agra Expressway, Karhal is a fortress of the Samajwadi Party which has won the seat five times during the last six assembly elections since 1993, except in 2002, when the BJP bagged it. The seat returned to SP in 2007 and is held by Sobaran Singh Yadav currently.
The main roundabout at Karhal-Ghiror road is bustling with activity in the forenoon. Bharti Yadav has just opened her tailoring shop where she also offers the parlour services to local womenfolk. Akhilesh Yadav is the natural choice for Bharti. “Bhaiyya will be elected from here,” says Bharti without an iota of doubt. When asked the reason, she says: “It is better than the prince becomes the king and not someone else. Even if Bhaiyya (read Akhilesh Yadav) doesn’t do anything, we will elect him.” Bharti’s conviction spells out the sentiment of many
in constituency lying in the heart of Yadav land.
Karhal is one of the four assembly segments in the Mainpuri district. The other three are Manipuri, Bhogaon, and Kishni. Though the SP had won Karhal seat in 2017 along with Mainpuri and Kishni, BJP walked away with Bhogaon. SP’s performance in previous assembly elections had been the worst in the recent past and the saffron brigade succeeded in making major inroads into Yadav land by bagging 22 of 28 assembly segments across Etawah, Mainpuri, Firozabad, Auraiyya, Kasganj, Farrukhabad, Etah, and Kannauj.
Voters of Karhal, especially, those coming from non-Yadav OBC and upper castes seem divided over their priorities and preferences. While Yadavs and Muslims stand strongly behind Akhilesh, the common refrain against SP on the ground is about its poor record on law and order and inefficient implementation of government schemes. Many of them want Akhilesh to win from Karhal but want Yogi to form the government in the state.
When it comes to the BJP’s OBC vote-base, stray cattle, unemployment, and inflation have aggrieved voters, but they are still willing to place their bets on the party.
Talk to a cross-section of voters and a mixed bag of opinions opens up. “It will not be easy here to get a fair idea of the pulse of the ground as there is a huge community of silent voters not only in Karhal but also in adjoining seats in adjoining districts,” says Vishal Pandey dealing in the trade of seeds and fertilizers. Pandey claims that people, except the Yadav community, will never spell out their choice. “Many keeps the cards close to their chest to escape intimidation later as they have to live here among the dominant Yadavs. They cast
their vote silently,” he adds while being supported by Sushil Kumar Gupta, the food grain trader having a shop at Ghiror roundabout.
“This is the reason that in previous assembly elections, BJP candidate Rama Shakya got over 65,000 votes without much ado. She was silent and so was the voter. However, SP’s Sobaran Singh Yadav won the seat by a margin of 38,000. People fear intimidation by the majority community here,” says Gupta exhibiting his political prowess.
As one proceeds towards the rural pockets, a subtle idea that a journalist is around making a gathering of villagers at Kanchapura, singing the folk songs awaiting ‘Holi’, cautious. As the interaction takes off, Prabal Pratap Singh Yadav aka Tillu Yadav, in his late 20s, jumps out claiming that not only Karhal, Kishni, Mainpuri and Bhogaon, but the entire Yadav belt and even the state is set to witness the return of Akhilesh Yadav as next CM. Tillu, a farmer by profession, is joined by others of his ilk in Kanchanpura village of Yadavs.
“We have around 2300 votes here and will ensure that SP Singh Baghel, the outsider, fails to save his deposit. Baghel ki jamanat jabt ho jayegi (Baghel will lose his deposit),” says Satyadev Yadav voicing the unflinching support to Akhilesh. “We don’t have to have an issue to support Akhilesh, however, if you ask me, unemployment, price rise, lack of development, closed schools, COVID mismanagement are enough reasons to send ‘Babaji’ back to Gorakhpur,” says Dharmendra Yadav.
While the SP is sitting confident about the support of Yadavs, Muslims, and chunks of other castes, BJP is pinning hopes on the support of non-Yadav OBCs and upper castes in Karhal which has 1.25 lakh of Yadavs and 18,000 Muslims. Non-Yadav castes include 35,000 shakyas, 30,000 Baghel, 30,000 Thakurs and 22,000 Dalits.
Going beyond the loyalty quotient towards the Yadav clan, law, order, benefits of Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Vikas Yojna, government housing schemes, toilets, seem to have traction on the ground. “The safety and security of our women can keep us tension-free and think of doing anything else in life. The current government has provided this confidence. Now the fear of losing family’s honour is no more there,” says Vinay Tiwari of Nagla Pat village.
Going further deep into the rural areas of Karhal, one finds a group of potato growers harvesting their crop. They hail the present law and order situation but suffer from stray cattle menace. “Now we are living in peace otherwise in the previous dispensation, it was not safe to leave the potato sacs in the fields. Now our family is safe and so is our money. Loot and extortion are a matter of the past. Stray cattle are the only issue. Yogi government needs to address it soon,” says Awadhesh Mishra of Nagla Pool village. The potato growers of this and
adjoin villages are selling their produce directly in the markets of Noida, Nagpur, and Hyderabad.
Similarly, the villages of non-Yadav OBCs including Shakyas, Prajapatis, Baghels, Pals, Sainis have apparently made their decision. Saugar Singh and Satyawati, a Shakya couple of Naglapur village claim that they would decide whom to vote on the day of voting. They are content with the law and order and security of their daughters in the present dispensation but miffed over the menace of stray cattle. “But we have never voted for SP and we will not do so this time as well,” says Saugar Singh Shakya.
The villages dominated by scheduled castes including Jatavs are still committed to Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). In Nagla Dhani village, Sarvesh Kumar, 35, MA in English and engaged in poultry farming, come out openly in support of ‘Behenji’, Mayawati. Vocal about the issues of price rise and unemployment, Sarvesh says Jatavs won’t let the BSP candidate down. “We will ensure that BSP candidate Kuldeep Narain is able to at least secure his deposit though nobody from BSP has contacted us so far,” he says.
But Mahipal, of the Jatav community, says he will vote for BJP as “he is getting free ration for so many days”.