Polling in Ayodhya, still known as Faizabad Lok Sabha seat, is on Monday next, but no such Ram temple wave is seen here.
Several political analysts are restless that the tide regarding Ram Temple which was visible around the consecration ceremony, is no longer visible here. Why are the voters silent? Will this issue have any impact?, was there concern.
In Faizabad seat, present sitting MP Lallu Singh is the BJP candidate trying his luck for the third time to enter the Parliament. INDI alliance candidate and SP nominee Awadhesh Prasad, a dalit MLA, is challenging the BJP here. In a trickish way BSP has fielded a Brahmin Sachidanand Pandey while a SP rebel Arvind Sen Yadav is also in the contest on CPI ticket. There are a total of 13 candidates in the fray.
Though residents of Ayodhya say that over 20 million people reached the Ram temple to have darshan of Ram Lala till date, the local people have no such craze about the issue.
Caste factor is still riding high in the constituency and voters are divided on caste lines.
But people say that those who have come to Ayodhya before, they see changes from the station and airport to the streets and temples of Ayodhya. This shows that the issue and attraction of Ram Mandir continues among the people and it is meaningless to think that elections and politics will remain free from its impact.
But to counter the Ram temple , the opposition was raking up the issues of inflation, unemployment, paper leak and reservation, which makes BJP restless.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi to counter the opposition onslaught held a roadshow here on May 5 . The PM did all this very cleverly to focus people’s wandering attention and bring Ayodhya back into the limelight at the national level, otherwise, they would have come to Ayodhya around May 15-18, just before the polling. After the arrival of the PM, the discussion on Ayodhya and Ram temple intensified in the country.
BJP’s Lallu Singh won the 2019 elections by a margin of 65,000 votes despite getting 5.29 lakh votes. Anand Sen Yadav, the SP candidate from the SP-BSP alliance, had received 4.63 lakh votes. If the 53,000 votes received by Congress’s Nirmal Khatri were added to the alliance, the difference would have become very close. Whereas, in 2014 Lallu won the elections by a margin of over 2.81 lakh votes.
This time Lallu Singh might be feeling a little relieved from the Ram Mandir factor. But, SP may benefit from Nirmal Khatri and Congress not being in the fray.
The SP candidate Awadhesh Prasad is from Pasi community which has a good presence in Faizabad seat. BJP is considered to have a good influence in the Pasi community. To make a dent in BJP’s Pasi vote bank, SP fielded senior MLA Awadhesh Prasad from Pasi community.
As SP denied ticket to the Sen family , Anand Sen’s brother and former IPS officer Arvind Sen has joined the fray as CPI candidate . After about 33 years in the saffron fort, a person from a prominent political family has come into the fray from the Communist Party.
Apart from SP and BSP, Arvind’s father Mitrasen Yadav has also been an MP from CPI in 1989 from Faizabad when the Ram temple movement was at its peak. Mitrasen has also been MLA five times.
Arvind Sen Yadav family has a good hold on the Yadav community , a major chunk of Yadavs could support the CPI candidate.
On the other hand, BSP has fielded Brahmin community candidate Sachidanand Pandey to make the path difficult for BJP. Pandey has been in BJP and joined BSP a few days back . Along with the cadre votes, he is seen making a dent in the Brahmin votes at some places.
Another challenge for SP is that one of its MLAs from the district, Abhay Singh, has joined the BJP. Abhay’s wife Sarita Singh, many of his associates and other family members are seeking votes for BJP.