Lucknow: BSP chief Mayawati may have stripped her nephew Akash Anand from the post of national coordinator and put on hold the decision of making him her political heir, but UP is replete with examples of young emerging Dalit leaders — all geared up to hit the hustings in the poll cauldron of UP this election season.
Leading the pack is SP candidate from Kaushambi, Pushpendra Saroj.
He is the youngest candidate in the country, after LJP’s Samastipur (Bihar) candidate Shambhavi Chaudhary, to be in fray.
Back in 2022, when SP chief Akhilesh Yadav first asked Pushpendra Saroj, a Pasi Dalit, to join politics he was only 23. Puspendra had then just returned from London after completing his graduation in accounting and management.
“Initially, I wanted to go into the field of business. But then politics was in my blood,” said Pushpendra, who turned 25 (the requisite age to contest Lok Sabha elections) on March 1. Pushpendra is the son of SP national general secretary and four-time MLA, Indrajeet Saroj who contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Kaushambi but lost to BJP’s Vinod Sonkar.
Formerly with the BSP, Indrajeet was a close aide of Mayawati until 2018 when he turned rebel and quit the party to join the SP.
So is the case with SP’s Machhlishahr candidate Priya Saroj (25), also a Pasi. An advocate by profession, Priya, too, is the daughter of SP MLA from Kerakat assembly seat in Jaunpur, Tufani Saroj.
Tufani himself has been a three-time MP – two times from Saidpur (1999 and 2004) and once from Machhlishahr in 2009. He, however, lost the seat to BJP’s Ram Charit Nishad in 2014 when BJP stormed to power at the Centre under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi.
BSP, too, has propped 42-year-old Indu Chaudhary, an assistant professor of English at the BHU, as its candidate from Lalganj reserved seat in Azamgarh. “It is certainly a privilege to contest an election under the leadership of Behenji (Mayawati),” said Chaudhary, who hails from Amebedkarnagar, and is contesting an election for the first time. Chaudhary said that she has been associated with social service and the Bahujan movement that aims to spread the ideology of constitution maker and Dalit icon BR Ambedkar.
Likewise, in Bahraich reserved seat, the BJP has fielded its sitting MP Akshaivar Lal Gond’s son Anand, an MBA and PhD. Anand would be taking the electoral plunge for the first time. Same is true for Shahjahanpur where the SP has fielded Jyotsana Gond, the niece of ex-party MLC Rajpal Kashyap. Jyotsana became the wild card entry after SP changed its earlier candidate Rajesh Kashyap.
Political experts said that the emergence of new and progressive Dalit leaders certainly empowers the community. “These candidates act as role models and encourage others,” observed Prof Shashi Kant Pandey, head of the political science department at the Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University. Experts said the trend, somehow, has been absent from the political functioning of Dalit dominated BSP as Mayawati “did not allow” any other leader to grow.
“The emergence of Akash Anand did give an option to Dalits but his removal has put the party back to square one,” Prof Pandey said.
Experts said that the emergence of Azad Samaj Party chief Chandrashekhar Azad too filled in the vacuum in the politically crucial west UP region. “It remains to be seen as to what extent his style of functioning and leadership gains roots in the days to come,” an analyst said.
Courtesy : TOI
Note: This news is originally published in timesofindia.com and was used solely for non-profit/non-commercial purposes exclusively for Human Rights.
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