The results of the last two Lok Sabha elections have shown that the political wave of BJP in Western Uttar Pradesh had benefited them in the eastern part of the state.
Similar was the fate of other parties in the past too and this is the reason that all parties try their best to win over the Western part of the state.
Of the eight seats that will go for voting in the first phase, for which notification has been issued today, the BJP had won all of them in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. In the entire state, the BJP alone had secured 71 seats and if the figure is counted with the alliance, it was 73 seats.
But in the 2019 elections, BJP proved to be weak in front of the grand alliance of SP-RLD and BSP on these seats. It was able to win only three out of the eight seats. The effect of this environment was that SP and BSP won many seats in Purvanchal and the BJP was stopped at 62. Of the eight seats where elections were held in the first phase, SP-BSP had won five in the last elections.
This time, the elections are starting again from the Western side of the state. In the first phase, elections will be held on eight Lok Sabha seats of Western UP.
Even the prominent parties have not been able to decide on candidates for many seats and the election scenario on these seats remains blurry.
Political equations have changed a lot since the 2019 Lok Sabha and then 2022 assembly polls, whose effect is clearly visible in the elections.
This election will also decide the stature of the prominent face of the area, RLD leader Jayant Chaudhary. Union Minister Sanjiv Balyan’s hat-trick efforts will be tested and this election will decide the political future of BJP leader Varun Gandhi as well as Nehtaur MLA Om Kumar.
The Western state is considered to be under the influence of farmer and Jat leader Ajit Singh. Whether they win or lose, the parties which had taken them along, have always considered themselves at an advantage. This time, the election is being held without Ajit Singh(He passed away in 2021).
The ruling BJP’s move to give Bharat Ratna to former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh proved effective as Jayant left the Jat-Dalit-Muslim equation of the last election and joined with the saffron party. This election will decide how right Jayant’s decision was.
In the last elections, there was a grand alliance of SP, BSP and RLD. Out of the eight seats in the first phase in 2019, four were contested by SP, three by BSP and one by RLD. While the BSP had won all three seats in its share (Saharanpur, Bijnor and Nagina), the SP had won two out of four seats (Moradabad and Rampur) and RLD could not open its account.
The BJP won Kairana, Muzaffarnagar and Pilibhit constituencies.
This time in 2024, the BJP-RLD have an alliance, with BJP contesting 7 seats and only Bijnor is left for the RLD.
Similarly, in the SP-Congress alliance, Saharanpur seat has gone to Congress, while the remaining seven seats are with the SP.