Lucknow, 26 April: Despite its stand of having an all-inclusive approach, the BJP has stuck to its traditional vote bank of Brahmins and Bania (trader community) in distributing tickets to the mayoral candidates on the unreserved/women seats.
The BJP’s list of mayoral candidates shows that out of 11 unreserved/women seats, the party has fielded candidates from Brahmin community on five seats, Bania on four while one candidate each is from Sindhi and Kayastha community. Data shows BJP fielded Brahmins on key mayoral seats, including Lucknow (Sushma Kharakwal), Kanpur (Pramila Pandey), Varanasi (Ashok Tewari), Bareilly (Umesh Gautam) and Ayodhya (Mahant Girish Pati Tripathi).
In Ghaziabad (Sunita Dayal Agarwal), Aligarh (Prashant Singhal), Moradabad (Vinod Agarwal), and Mathura (Vinod Agarwal), candidates from the Bania community have been fielded. The BJP has backed Ganesh Kesarwani and Dr Manglesh Srivastava from the Sindhi and Kayastha communities in Prayagraj and Gorakhpur, respectively.
Positioning itself as the BJP’s most powerful competitor, the SP has also relied on upper caste candidates. On the unreserved/women seats, it has issued tickets to four Brahmins, two Kayasthas, and one Bhumihar. In Lucknow (Vandana Mishra), Kanpur (Vandana Bajpai), Ayodhya (Ashish Pandey), and Mathura (Pandit Tulsi Ram Sharma), the SP has nominated Brahmin candidates.
Ajay Srivastava, who will run from Prayagraj, and Sanjeev Saxena, who will run from Bareilly, are the SP’s Kayastha candidates. OP Singh, the SP’s Varanasi contender, is Bhumihar, a significant upper caste with a considerable representation in east UP.
SP, on the other hand, has run OBC candidates in Ghaziabad (Poonam Yadav) and Gorakhpur (Kajal Nishad), as well as Muslim candidates in Moradabad (Syed Raeesuddin) and Aligarh (Zamirullah Khan). Experts interpreted the pattern as the SP’s yet another targeted attempt to square off against the BJP in the civic polls, which are being billed as a semi-final before the Lok Sabha elections next year.
The Congress isn’t far behind. The great old party has fielded five Brahmins in UP, desperate for a resurrection course: Ashani Awasthi (Kanpur), Prabha Shankar Mishra (Prayagraj), CP Gautam (Aligarh), Kulbhushan Tripathi (Bareilly), and Raj Kumar (Mathura). Pushpa Rawat, a Thakur, is running in Ghaziabad, while Pramila Rajput, a Sindhi, is running in Ayodhya. Kayastha candidates have been fielded in Varanasi (Anil Srivastava) and Gorakhpur (Navin Sinha).
The BSP, on the other hand, has stuck to its Muslim card, fielding seven Muslims from unreserved/women seats. According to observers, the BSP’s persistent focus on the Muslim community has cast a harsh light on party president Mayawati’s attempt to combine her core Dalit vote bank with Muslims to build a powerful political bloc.
