Like his main challenger, Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav, Uttar Pradesh Prime Minister Yogi Adityanath is contesting his first general election. And like Akhilesh Yadav, Yogi Adityanath fights from a “super safe” spot on his home court. Contrasted with Akhilesh Yadav’s Karhal, Yogi Adityanath’s Seat Gorakhpur Urban is no “caste-dominated” constituency per se.
“MINI COSMOPOLITAN” GORAKHPUR
The constituency of the Gorakhpur City Assembly is considered a mini-cosmopolitan in the makeup of the electorate. There are about 4.5 lakh voters in the Gorakhpur Urban constituency, from where Yogi Adityanath submitted his nomination papers on Friday.
— Yogi Adityanath (@myogiadityanath) February 4, 2022
Although there is no caste census record to confirm, it is estimated that the Gorakhpur Urban constituency has about 60,000 to 70,000 Brahmanic voters, followed by 55,000 to 60,000 Kayasthas and about 50,000 merchants or Vaishya voters.
About 50,000 voters are Dalit and about 75,000 from backward castes such as Nishads, Yadavs, Nonias, Sainthwars and others. About 40,000 voters are Muslims and 25,000-30,000 are Rajputs. Among other voters, the seat of Gorakhpur Urban has significant numbers of Bengalis, Sikh-Punjabis, Sindhis and Christians, all with local dominance in some voting booths.
While Akhilesh Yadav’s Karhal is said to be decided by Yadav voters to win a seat in Gorakhpur Urban, a candidate must win votes from the cosmopolitan demographic composition. No voter from a single commune could ensure the victory of any candidate in the Gorakhpur Urban constituency.
BJP DOMINANCE IN GORAKHPUR
Because of this, Bharatiya Jan Sangh (precursor of the Bharatiya Janata Party) and the Janata Party (which gave rise to many Janata parties including the Samajwadi Party) were able to defeat Congress even days before the Ayodhya movement in that constituency.
The BJP has dominated the Gorakhpur Urban constituency since 1989, losing the seat only once in 2002 when Yogi Adityanath, then a member of Lok Sabha, supported Radha Mohan Das Agarwal in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Agarwal later joined the BJP. He has been the Gorakhpur Urban MLA since 2002.
Yogi Adityanath established his dominance over the Gorakhpur electorate as MP of Lok Sabha and also as head of the Gorakhnath Math with his outreach programs such as Sah-Bhoj (community festival) with the Dalit caste and rights enforcement movements of the marginalized Musahar and Vantangiya caste.
ROLE OF GORAKHPUR MATH
Gorakhpur Math is not only a religious center in Gorakhpur and the neighboring areas of Purvanchal, but also serves as a facility for medical treatment and community aid. The seat of Gorakhpur Lok Sabha stood at the Chief Priest of Gorakhnath Math for seven consecutive terms between 1989 and 2017 when Yogi Adityanath resigned as MP to head the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh.
PAST ELECTIONS
In Lok Sabha side polls, Samajwadi party candidate Praveen Nishad defeated BJP candidate Upendra Dutt Shukla in 2018. This could happen as Nishad, a dominant community vote bank, tied with Mallahs with 23 percent of the vote could achieve momentum of over 27 percent of the polled votes via the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
The reversal was aided by the SP-Bahujan Samaj party alliance, which nominated the son of Nishad party leader Sanjay Nishad. The change in votes proved short-lived, however, as BJP’s Ravi Kishan received over 60.5 percent of the vote for Lok Sabha’s candidate in 2019, despite the SP and BSP joining forces.
In the last two assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Agarwal of BJP received over 49 percent (2012) and almost 56 percent (2017) votes. In 2012, the Samajwadi party received about 21 percent of the vote, followed by the BSP with 14 percent and Congress with less than 7 percent.
When Congress won the seat in 2017 as part of an alliance with the SP, their candidate received 28 percent of the vote, followed by the BSP with 11 percent. The combined proportion of the competing votes was less than the BJP’s candidate.
CAN THERE BE A SOURCE IN GORAKHPUR?
With Yogi Adityanath running in the general elections and the Bahujan Samaj Party, Congress and rising Dalit leader Chandra Shekhar Azad “Ravan” not aligning with the Samajwadi Party, the next rival candidate is bound to garner a bigger swing than in 2018 Lok Sabha votes at Gorakhpur Urban seat in what may be the biggest upset of Uttar Pradesh assembly elections 2022.
Sanjay Nishad, the swinger of the 2018 Lok Sabha by-election, was with Yogi Adityanath when he announced his nomination on Friday accompanied by Union Home Secretary and BJP Chief Election Strategist Amit Shah, Union Minister and BJP Chief of Staff for Uttar Pradesh , Dharmendra Pradhan and Uttar Pradesh, submitted BJP President Swantatra Dev Singh in Gorakhpur.
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