Akhilesh Yadav and Yogi Adityanath
The Samajwadi Party is elated after winning 37 seats in the Lok Sabha elections. Also, BJP is worried about being limited to 33 seats. Now it is the turn of the by-election between happiness and sorrow. By-elections are to be held in 10 assembly seats of UP, of which 5 are held by NDA and 5 by SP. Out of these 10 seats, 3 are known as SP’s strongholds. These seats are Karhal, Kundarki and Katehri. It wouldn’t be wrong to call this SP’s 3K trap. Now the question is whether BJP will be able to pierce this trap of Akhilesh.
SP president Akhilesh Yadav was MLA from Karhal. He has now become an MP. While Kathari is the seat of Ambedkar Nagar. SP’s Lalji Verma was MLA from here. He has become MP from Ambedkarnagar Lok Sabha seat. While Kundarki seat comes under Moradabad. It is Muslim dominated. Ziaur Rehman Vark was an MLA from here, but this time he has won from Sambhal Lok Sabha seat and became MP.
Karhal is a Yadav dominated seat
Yadav dominates the Karhal assembly seat in Mainpuri district. It has the highest number of 1.25 lakh Yadav voters. In such a situation SP always played the caste card. SP continued to win here by fielding a Yadav candidate in Karhal’s political arena. Because of the caste math, the politics of Karhal has been favorable to the SP every time. This is why Akhilesh Yadav chose this seat for himself in 2022.
The Karhal assembly seat has around three lakh voters, the largest number of whom belong to the Yadav community. After that the voters of Shakya community are 35 thousand. This is followed by 30 thousand votes each of the Pal and Thakur communities. Dalit community is about 40 thousand, Muslims 20 thousand, Brahmins 15 thousand, Lodha and Vaishya 15 thousand. Considering the current political equation in the 2022 assembly elections, the BJP fielded Union Minister SP Singh Baghel against Akhilesh Yadav. SP Singh Baghel was defeated by 67 thousand 504 votes.
Also understand the story of Kundaraki
In 2022, SP’s Ziaur Rehman Bark became an MLA after winning the election from the Kundarki assembly seat. The party contested the Lok Sabha elections and won that too. Now he has become MP from Sambhal seat. After resigning from the post of MLA, a by-election is to be held on the Kundarki assembly seat. This is a Muslim dominated seat. This is the reason why only SP and BSP have won here so far. SP won here in 2012, 2017 and 2022 elections. At the same time, the BSP won the 2007 elections and the SP won the 2002 elections. BJP has won only one election on this seat. It was the 1993 election. Then CV Singh became the MLA here.
Katheri’s equation
Katheri is the assembly seat of Ambedkarnagar district. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won only one election from Katehari assembly seat. He decided to win the 1991 assembly elections. Since 1991, BSP candidates have won five out of six times in this seat. Talking about the electoral past, Rabindra Nath Tiwari was elected as an MLA from this seat in 1977 and 1985 on a Janata Party ticket and in 1989 on a Janata Dal ticket. In 1991, BJP’s Anil Kumar Tiwari won.
In 1993, for the first time, a BSP candidate won from the Katehri assembly seat, followed by the party’s Ramdev Verma. After this, BSP’s Dharamraj Nishad won three times in a row in 1996, 2002 and 2007. The Samajwadi Party (SP) put a brake on the BSP’s victory in 2012. In the 2012 elections, Sankhlal Manjhi of SP had reached the Legislative Assembly by winning from Katehri seat.
Lalji Verma was elected as an MLA from Katehari assembly seat on a BSP ticket in the 2017 assembly elections. Lalji Verma defeated Awadhesh Kumar Dwivedi of BJP by a margin of 6287 votes. SP’s Jaishankar Pandey stood third. At the same time, in the 2022 elections, Lalji Verma contested on a SP ticket and became an MLA.
