Branding himself after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Alwar, Baba Balak Nath, has waded into the Assembly poll in Rajasthan on November 25 from Tijara constituency with the tagline “Rajasthan Ka Yogi”.
Apart from their saffron robes, the two monks have only one thing in common — they both belong to the Nath sect.
While 2019 was the first electoral battle for the 39-year-old monk, who travels in high-end SUVs and wears diamond studs, 2023 will be his litmus test as resentment is brewing in Tijara over the denial of ticket to former MLA Maman Singh Yadav alias Masterji.
Mr. Yadav had won from Tijara in 2013 and is the first BJP candidate to win from this constituency, which has otherwise mostly remained a stronghold of the Congress.
Balak Nath is a disciple of the late Mahant Chand Nath Yogi, the former BJP MP from Alwar and mahant at the Baba Mastnath Math (monastery) in Rohtak. Before he passed away in 2017, Chand Nath declared Balak Nath as his successor.
Born in a Yadav family in Alwar, where his father worked as a farmer, Balak Nath is the Chancellor of Baba Mastnath University in Rohtak. The university has an engineering and medical college, he said. His election affidavit of 2019 said he completed his intermediate in 2019 from an open university.
Balak Nath had become an MP for the first time in 2019 after defeating Congress leader and former Union Minister Bhanwar Jitendra Singh. Popular among the Yadav community, one of the dominant castes in Tijara, he is banking on his mentor, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to connect with voters who hardly know him.
At a campaign rally last week, he attacked the Congress over the Sanatana Dharma remark and asked the audience if a party that hates ‘dharma’ can ever do any good for them. He also spoke about how Mr. Modi gave cooking gas, toilets, houses, free food for everyone, and how the PM is the only true leader.
‘Parachute candidate’
“He has nothing else to say. In the last four years, he has done nothing for this area. He is a parachute candidate and people will throw him out,” said Mr. Yadav, who is planning to contest as an Independent.
“Masterji has our full support,” said Sandeep Singh Yadav, a teacher, who claimed the people in Tijara have collected over ₹1 crore for Mr. Yadav to contest the election.
Mr. Yadav told The Hindu that he hasn’t asked for a penny from the people but it’s the public who give him their cars for rallies.
Balak Nath, however, is unaffected by the resentment. “Apne log hain, hum mana lenge (They are our people, we will convince them),” he said.
Congress to put up a fight
The Congress is also not leaving any stone unturned to make the election a tough fight for Balak Nath. Sources said the party is planning to pitch a minority candidate rather than repeating the ticket to sitting MLA Sandeep Yadav.
Tijara, a town famous for Jain temples, has a major chunk of Muslim Meo voters after the Yadavs. “I have expressed my wish to contest from some other constituency this time, but the party will take the final call,” said Mr. Sandeep, who had switched to the Congress from the BSP in 2018.
