LUCKNOW: In no mood to let SP chief Akhilesh Yadav an easy ride in Karhal, the BJP sprang a surprise on Monday by fielding Union minister of state for law and justice Satya Pal Singh Baghel, a Dalit, against him.
The move has the potential to trigger a high-profile keen contest and Yadav versus Dalit clash on the home turf of Yadav family in Mainpuri.
Besides, the fielded a local party functionary Vivek Shakya, a non-Yadav OBC, from Jaswantnagar against Akhilesh’s uncle Shivpal Yadav, who has been winning the seat since 1996.
In Hamirpur, BJP has fielded Manoj Prajapati, an OBC. Manoj, an SP turncoat, had lost to BJP’s Ashok Chandel in 2017, and again to BJP’s Yuvraj Singh in the bypolls necessitated by Chandel losing his membership after his conviction in a 22-year-old mass murder case.
The nomination of Baghel, however, hogged all the limelight. Political analysts say that it shows BJP's well-planned move to engage the SP chief in a keen contest. "They did a similar experiment in Amethi by fielding Smriti Irani against Rahul Gandhi in 2014. She gave a tough fight in the first attempt and won the second time," says a political observer.
After the saffron outfit kept his candidature strictly under wraps, Baghel turned up to file his nomination soon after Akhilesh submitted his papers from the constituency which goes to polls in the third phase of elections.
Significantly, this is not the first time when Baghel will be contesting against Akhilesh. In 2009 Lok Sabha elections, Baghel had contested against Akhilesh from Firozabad on BSP ticket but lost by around 67,000 votes. He again contested against Dimple Yadav in the 2010 bypoll and polled just 14,000 less votes than her. Dimple lost to Congress's Raj Babbar.
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Born in Bhatpura village of Auraiya district, Baghel hails from Dhangar sub-caste within Dalits. The sub-caste typically separates itself from the socio-economically powerful Yadav community which wields considerable influence in the region.
Baghel’s candidature comes close on the heels of BSP fielding Kuldeep Narayan, a Jatav, from Karhal, marking party chief Mayawati’s attempt to consolidate her core Dalit voters who have been drifting towards BJP since 2014.
The Congress party has , meanwhile, tried to cut into the Yadav vote bank by fielding Gyanwati Yadav from the seat.
Baghel, who has a doctorate in military science, was the personal security officer (PSO) of former CM and SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav in the mid 1990s. He formally started his political career in 1998 by contesting as SP candidate from Jalesar parliamentary seat and defeated BJP’s Ompal Singh Nidar. He retained the seat in 1999 and then again in 2004, the year when Akhilesh won from Kannauj.
After he switched over to BSP and fought against Akhilesh in 2009, Mayawati rewarded Baghel by sending him to Rajya Sabha in July 2010. But just before his tenure was to complete in 2014, Baghel jumped ship and joined BJP. He contested against senior SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav’s son Akshay Yadav from Firozabad but lost by around 1.14 lakh votes.
Baghel’s persistence won him another chance in 2017 when he won Tundla reserved seat in Firozabad on BJP ticket and was inducted in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet as minister for animal husbandry, fisheries, and minor irrigation.
In 2019, Baghel was fielded by BJP from Agra reserved seat, as the party replaced senior Dalit leader Ram Shankar Katheria. Baghel defeated SP-backed BSP candidate Manoj Kumar Soni by a huge margin of over 2.1 lakh votes. And on July 7, 2021, he was inducted in the Narendra Modi cabinet.
