Marginalised sections face crisis of leadership: Aazad
Our preparation has started with booth committees in these seats shortlisting probable candidates, says Chandra Shekhar Aazad
Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) president and Lok Sabha MP from Nagina, Chandra Shekhar Aazad, said on Sunday that his party would contest the assembly by elections in Uttar Pradesh. Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Aazad added that there was a political vacuum in the representation of vanchit (marginalised/deprived) sections as all the established political parties had failed to address the grievances of Dalit, Backward, and other neglected communities.
His party was working to establish itself as the voice of such social groups with the assembly by elections to 10 seats in U.P. being the first step. “We will contest the by elections. Our preparation has started with booth committees in these seats shortlisting probable candidates,” he said. Mr. Aazad added that his party will start working to organise camps in villages across the state after September this year to sensitise marginalised sections about their issues. and about the protection of their constitutional rights.
Bypolls have become necessary in nine assembly seats after MLAs, including the Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav, won election to the Lok Sabha. One Vidhan Sabha seat, Sishamau, will be vacated by the SP’s Irfan Solanki. He is set to lose the assembly membership after being sentenced to seven years imprisonment in an arson case.
The newly elected MP said that a vacuum exists in the politics of Dalits, Backwards, and other Vanchit (marginalised) social groups, with the Nagina Lok Sabha verdict providing a broader message. “A vacuum definitely exists in the politics of marginalised sections, as political parties getting votes from such communities have neglected their grievances and failed to fight for their constitutionally guaranteed rights. The verdict of Nagina is a signal that marginalised sections are looking for an alternative and a ray of hope,” Mr. Aazad told The Hindu. He added, “Nagina and Bijnor have always thrown up leaders from amongst the marginalised sections. In past elections, leaders like Mayawati Ji, Meera Kumar Ji, and Ram Vilas Paswan Ji have emerged from the seat. Behan Ji (Mayawati) won from here in 1989, hence the message is big.”
Dalit bastion
In the 2024 Lok Sabha poll, Mr. Aazad won from Nagina, a Scheduled Caste (SC) reserved constituency in Western U.P. with a sizeable Dalit electorate, by over 1,50,000 votes. All the five assembly segments coming under Nagina Lok Sabha are part of Bijnor district. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati, who served four times as U.P. CM also won from Bijnor Lok Sabha in 1989, making her parliamentary debut. In the 1985 Lok Sabha bypoll in Bijnor, three key Dalit leaders were in the fray: Mayawati, former Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar. The seat was won by Meira Kumar.
Mr. Aazad strongly objected to being called a Dalit leader adding it was propaganda created to reduce his social acceptability across different caste groups and called himself a flagbearer of marginalised sections. “Our party always stands for the cause of neglected sections be it Dalits, Backwards, Minorities or other neglected sections, so to brand me as Dalit leader is unacceptable,” he said.
Refraining from commenting on the sharp electoral decline of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the newly elected MP said that the BSP could better explain the dip in vote share and seats. “We fought two seats, winning one Nagina in Western U.P., while in Domariyaganj, which is in Eastern U.P. Our candidate polled more than 81,000 votes, I am concerned about my party only,” he added.
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Uttar Pradesh
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state politics