Yogi Adityanath puts his reputation at stake for Milkipur assembly by-poll. What happens next?

After an embarrassing reversal in the 2024 parliament elections when the ruling party lost the prestigious Ayodhya seat to Samajvadi Party, Bharatiya Janata Party’s Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is fighting tooth and nail to win the Milkipur assembly seat, which is part of the Ayodhya parliamentary seat, from Samajwadi Party. Milkipur was vacated by SP’s Dalit leader, Avadesh Prasad, who won handsomely from Ayodhya. The by-poll to Milkipur is scheduled for February 5.

During the parliament elections, Samajwadi Party won 37 seats from UP and mostly from around the centres of pilgrimages like Varanasi, Ayodhya among others. In the process it punctured the myth that the BJP had a monopoly over those constituencies that nestled Hindu centres of worship. The win of SP from Ayodhya reaffirmed the secular character of the region and reiterated a simple fact that there is a limit to BJP’s election campaign founded on majoritarian communalism.

With 37 seats, Samajwadi Party emerged as the third largest party in the Lok Sabha after BJP and Congress.  It could have won more seats if the Bahujan Samaj Party would not have been a spoiler and hurt them in 15 odd seats. The performance of the BJP in parliament elections was so dismal that it sent shockwaves in the ruling party all over the country. The common belief was that if the BSP and some other factors had not helped the BJP then it would have lost 2024 elections. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi struggled to win his own seat from Varanasi.

After the Ayodhya win, Akhilesh Yadav projected Avadesh Prasad as a national hero and made arrangements for him to sit next to him in Lok Sabha. It is a different matter that Avadesh Prasad found himself seated on a different row during the winter session of the parliament.

After the debacle in parliament elections, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath took charge of Milkipur assembly constituency and supervised the posting of the officials in the area and deputed seven ministers to interact with different sections of the society to mobilise support for BJP in the by-poll. He also managed to defer the by poll when 9 others took place late last year.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has himself visited Milkipur five times and announced several welfare schemes to win over the support of the local voters. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has staked his personal prestige in this by-election and has given message to voters that they should vote for him rather than the candidate, who was immaterial.

Despite the fact that Ram temple did not yield electoral dividends, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will still perform special puja at the temple at Ayodhya to celebrate one year of the new temple and kickstart the election campaign. Yogi is hoping that this time around, he will be able to break Samajwadi Party’s winning spell and neuter its formula of PDA (pichda, dalit and alpsankhayak) that weaves in Dalits, Yadavs and Muslims. SP won this seat in 2012, lost in 2017 but again captured in 2022 SP has announced the name of Ajeet Prasad, as the candidate from Milkipur. He is the son of Awadhesh Prasad, who accompanies him as engage in door-door campaign.

This time around, it would not be easy for Samajwadi Party. Under Yogi, the BJP has been running a muscular campaign. Though it has been restrained by the Supreme Court to demolish houses of its opponents, Yogi’s detractors still live under the mortal fear of the state authorities making their lives difficult. Due to the belligerence of the state administration, the minorities and the backwards, from where the opposition and resistance comes to the BJP, have been on the defensive.  In the recent assembly by-polls, BJP won six seats and one by its ally RLD, while SP could win only two seats. Significantly enough, BJP even won Kundarki assembly seat with predominantly Muslim voters. Questions have been raised about how the BJP achieved the impossible.

Apprehending misuse of official machinery on polling day, SP leadership has demanded webcasting of all the 417 polling booths of Milkipur and asked the state election Commission to provide the link of webcasting to the candidates of recognised political parties. It’s national president Akhilesh Yadav recently alleged that videos exposed large-scale bungling and misuse of official machinery in the by-elections held for nine seats few months back.

Milkipur by-poll is significant as it would show how BJP wins in religious centres like Ayodhya that it had lost in the recent Lok Sabha polls. If Samajwadi Party, wins then it will gain in confidence to to take on the BJP for the 2027 assembly polls.

(Cover Photo: Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath. Credit: MYogiAdityanath/FaceBook)