Saiyed Danish for IndiaTomorrow.net,
Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh, Feb 9: Post alliance, both the Samajwadi Party and the Congress party seem to be trying their best in putting up a combined show in which both voters and party workers could believe. However, tensions and confusions continue to dent their meetings and campaigns, and Barabanki’s hotly-contested Zaidpur Assembly constituency seems to be no different.
The Zaidpur seat will test the clout of Congress party’s stalwart and national Dalit leader P.L. Punia as the party has fielded his young and well-educated son Tanuj Punia as per the seat sharing arrangement in the alliance. Mr. Punia had lost his own Lok Sabha election from Barabanki seat in 2014 but still managed to secure above 2 lakh votes. “Today, the people regret not voting my father who has done so much work here. That will work in my favour,” said Tanuj Punia, chemical engineer from IIT Roorkee, while speaking to IndiaTomorrow.net. He also stressed on the works done by his father as a hallmark of trust among his people.
“My father constructed a 54 km long embankment to save the villagers from the Ghagra river flood. He provided mosques and temples with solar lights. In all, 2, 872 villages have been provided with electricity in the entire Branbanki area. He also constructed a much needed railway overbridge to help needy people,” said 32-year-old Punia.
When asked about the semblance among the workers of both the parties and the confusion which remained in the air before the declaration of his ticket, he said, “there was a little confusion in filing the nomination from this seat as the sitting MLA from the Samajwadi party Ramgopal Rawat had already filed his nomination from here but after a week this seat was allotted to me, so he was asked by his party to withdraw the nomination but since he couldn’t do it in time, he also becomes a candidate from here technically. But there is nothing to worry as we have spread the work among the voters on which button to press this time.”
Tanuj Punia (C) with his father P.L. Punia on his left and others in Zaidpur, Barabanki in Feb 2017.
However, one glance at the meeting of Congress and SP district leadership at Punia’s residence in Obri village told a different tale. A dais full of local leaders of both parties beamed of confidence and trust on the surface but as the leaders took turns to speak, their concerns exposed the nervousness within.
Mr. P.L. Punia stressed on unity of both the parties and blamed RSS for playing “dirty games” and BSP for being “untrustworthy”. “Our alliance is based on principles,” he said and then went to say that “old time hatchets and complaints must be buried on workers level,” while looking at the SP leaders and repeated his concerns quite a few times again before he sat down. It showed Mr. Punia’s worries over genuine help coming from SP in Zaidpur. Responding to this, Mr. Arvind Gope, a Cabinet Minister and SP district president Mr. Kuldip Singh, both assured of their party’s dedication towards winning Zaidpur seat.
But the absence of Ramgopal Rawat, who was hellbent on contesting from Zaidpur until a week ago, sent signals of a possible sabotage job from his cadres during the campaign.
IndiaTomorrow.net also spoke to some Muslims of Zaidpur, whose vote is the deciding factor there, after the Rawat community. As per Census 2011, Muslims in Zaidpur form a strength of over 34,443. They find themselves tilting towards the alliance as the day of voting (19 Feb in Phase III) nears. In the Muslim locality of Zaidpur, hoardings of both the sitting MLA Ramgopal Rawat and ex-MP P.L. Punia can be seen taking credits of their respective works done in the area.
“Earlier, we were SP voters but when the alliance was declared, we knew we have to vote him (Tanuj Punia),” said an elderly man at a tea stall in Zaidpur. On Muzaffarnagar question, the voters said that “it was a difficult phase but it is time to move on.”
Muslims here do not seem impressed with Mayawati. “There was a time when Mayawati was kowtowing Modi, how can we trust her? Hence, the two faces (Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi) of the alliance look good to us,” they opined while Mr. Tanuj Punia was visiting a nearby dargah.
