In an action replay of the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, 13 Muslim candidates from the Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal (SP-RLD) alliance and 17 from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) will contest for the 58 seats in the Phase 1 of February 10 election in West UP where the Muslim population is on the higher side.
This means nearly 22% of the election tickets have been allotted to Muslim candidates by the SP in Phase 1 while BSP’s share is nearly 29%. News18 collated this information through official lists of both parties and the nominations filed by the candidates, according to the Election Commission of India’s website (ECI).
The BJP has not distributed any ticket to a Muslim in its list of 109 contenders declared for the Phase 1. In the upcoming elections in Phase 1, both the SP-RLD alliance and BSP have put up Muslim candidates in eight seats. This is expected to help the BJP in the said seat as Muslim votes may get divided. In the 2017 assembly elections, out of the said 58 seats, seven saw both the SP-Congress alliance and BSP have Muslim candidates. The BJP had ended up winning all seven seats.
The eight seats this time where both SP-RLD and BSP have put up Muslim candidates are Thana Bhawan, Siwalkhas, Meerut, Meerut South, Dhulana, Bulandshaher, Koil and Aligarh. After Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s “80 versus 20” comment regarding voter support for the BJP, the SP feels the Muslims will unite behind it to defeat the BJP but the BSP has always enjoyed good support amongst the community in West UP. In the 2017 elections in the initial two phases in West UP, it is believed that Muslims largely supported the BSP.
Just like the 2017 elections, no Muslim candidate has been given a ticket by the SP-led alliance in the six seats of Muzzafarnagar district. This has been in the backdrop of the Muzzafarnagar communal riots of 2013 with Jats and Muslims coming at odds, and since then, the Muslims aligned with the SP or BSP and the Jats moved their loyalty to the BJP. The SP-RLD alliance, however, has given four tickets to Muslims in the Meerut district and to Nahid Hasan in Kairana.
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