NEW DELHI: The combined might of the SP-BSP helped SP win Sambhal in 2019.
Uttar Pradesh’s Sambhal Lok Sabha constituency, which is voting on Tuesday, 7 May, is dominated by the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party. It has a strong presence of Muslim and Yadav voters, the reason why this seat is considered to be difficult for the Bharatiya Janata Party.
But the BJP has been gaining ground in Sambhal and registered its first win in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. It lost the seat to SP in 2019. However, in 2024, the BJP seems to be rising again in Sambhal.
The Sambhal Lok Sabha constituency comprises five Assembly segments—Kundarki, Bilari, Chandausi, Asmoli and Sambhal. In 2019, four of the five Assembly segments voted for the SP, while one went to the BJP. In the 2022 Assembly elections, the SP repeated it feat of winning four of the five Assembly seats. However, there is strong unhappiness with SP in Sambhal and BJP is hoping to cash in on this.
Like in 2019, this time too, the BJP has fielded Parameshvar Lal Saini against Zia ur Rehman Barq of the SP, while the BSP has announced Shaulat Ali as its candidate.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, SP’s Barq won the seat with a margin of 174,826 votes. Barq got 658,006 votes, with a vote share of 56%, while BJP’s Saini, got 483,180 votes (40.82%). In 2019, the SP and BSP were in alliance, which helped Barq. However, in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, BJP’s Satyapal Singh won the seat with a vote share of 34.08%, while SP’s Barq got 33.59% votes.
The SP is banking heavily on the “MY” (Muslim-Yadav) factor. Sambhal has a 48% Muslim voters and at least 10% Yadav. However, not all Yadavs are happy with the SP. Ramesh Yadav, a voter, told The Sunday Guardian that people in Sambal were unhappy with Barq. “Zia ur Rahman Barq, after winning the Kundarki Assembly seat (in 2022), has not come to the Assembly for once.”
Another voter, Ashutosh, said that he would vote for the BJP because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He added that since the BJP has come to power in UP, development work has improved, and crime has decreased.
Political pundits who follow UP’s politics believe that non-Yadav and OBC voters are standing firmly with the BJP, and a chunk of Muslim and Yadav voters may also shift towards the party. This shift makes the BJP a strong contender in Sambhal. The Modi factor is also very important for the voters, pundits say.
I.P. Singh, the national spokesperson of the SP, said that they would win Sambhal as the party’s Muslim-Yadav vote bank was intact. He further said MY voters would never shift to the BJP and that the BJP was just spreading rumours about Muslims and Yadavs.