S R Darapuri, National President, All India People’s Front
(Asian independent) Nagina Lok Sabha seat of Uttar Pradesh is in the news because for the first time, Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) President Chandrashekhar Azad has won from this seat. Chandrashekhar was pitted against BJP, BSP and alliance candidates. Chandrashekhar won by 1,51,473 votes. He got a total of 5,12,552 votes. BJP candidate got 3,61,079 votes, Samajwadi Party got 1,02,374 votes and BSP candidate got 13,272 votes. Thus, Chandrashekhar’s victory can be said to have been by a good margin.
The main reason for Chandrashekhar’s victory by a very good margin is the population mathematics of Nagina. Nagina is a reserved seat. The number of voters here is approximately 16 lakhs. It has about 46% Muslims and 21% Dalits and about 30% Chauhan, Saini and other backward class voters. There are five assembly constituencies in this Lok Sabha constituency, which include Nathaur, Najibabad, Nagina, Dhampur and Noorpur.
Earlier Nagina was a part of Bijnor Lok Sabha constituency, which later became Nagina Lok Sabha constituency after delimitation. Due to the high percentage of Muslims and Dalits, this Lok Sabha seat has been the centre of Dalit politics. Mayawati was elected MP from here as a BSP candidate in 1989, while Congress’s Meera Kumar won in 1985. BSP candidate Girish Chandra from the SP-BSP alliance won from this seat.
The main reason for Chandrashekhar’s victory on the Nagina seat has been the full support of Muslim voters and a large part of Dalit voters. Mayawati has considered this area as her stronghold, but this time Dalits and Muslims have voted for Chandrashekhar instead of voting for Mayawati with the aim of defeating BJP. That is why the BSP candidate got very few votes and came fourth.
Some people are considering Chandrashekhar’s victory as the beginning of a new Dalit politics, while Mayawati is continuously declining. It is worth considering that Chandrashekhar has neither any Dalit agenda nor any progressive ideology. The failure of Bahujan politics of Kanshiram that he talks about taking forward is in front of everyone and Mayawati is the biggest successor of Kanshiram. It will not be possible to defeat the Hindutva politics of BJP with only Dalit Muslim alliance. For this, a large democratic class alliance and an alternative pro-people economic policy is needed against the economic politics that is pro-corporate and fosters global finance capital. Therefore, our firm opinion is that Dalits should come out of the politics of identity and become a part of a large democratic class alliance in which the issues of Dalits, backward classes, minorities, tribals, laborers and farmers should be at the centre. It is worth considering that caste politics only strengthens Hindutva politics, defeating which is our main objective.
