By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
The roads leading to the city of Allahabad from all the surrounding major districts are a major mess, thanks to the never-ending road expansion project of state government. Navigating through the outskirts of Allahabad via traffic jams and bad roads, one reaches Phulpur, a Lok Sabha constituency scheduled for by-elections on March 11 along with Gorakhpur.
At the outset, it must be pointed out while Phulpur and Allahabad are two separate seats, there is no such clear division between Allahabad and Phulpur. The major localities of Allahabad city including the city’s famous marketplace called Civil Lines fall under Phulpur constituency, while the majority of the rural areas of Phulpur district fall under Allahabad constituency.
But when one finally understands how the Phulpur constituency is distributed, it becomes easy to configure that the constituency has an almost equal number of Hindus and Muslims. And this factor has the power to change the equation in the upcoming polls.
In the middle of West Allahabad, there is a locality called ‘Karbala’ along the famous Grand Trunk Road. Just below the Karbala flyover, a mansion with a large parking space is located prominently along the road. The parking area is filled with hundreds of men who are seen relaxing and having snacks. The large glow-shine board installed at the top of the house says “Public Relations Office — Atiq Ahmad (former member of parliament)”.
Outside the office, the campaigners are waiting for a teenager, the son of Atiq Ahmed, who is heading the campaign as his father is in jail. The campaigners, however, believes that the Senior Ahmed has a definite chance. Shibali Pradhan, a 30-year-old campaigner for Atiq Ahmad, says, “There have been many governments in the past of Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, but neither has looked towards ‘us’. The candidacy of Sansad Ji (referring to Atiq Ahmad) is important to our community.”
Politician-Gangster Atiq Ahmad filed nominations for Phulpur Lok Sabha constituency after Keshav Prasad Maurya resigned to become the Deputy Chief Minister of UP. After Ahmad —currently in Deoria jail for many crimes committed and other allegations — filed his nomination, the fight in Phulpur has become interesting and indicating towards a clear religious polarisation in the run-up to the elections.
Atiq Ahmad won the Phulpur seat in 2004 on the ticket of Samajwadi Party. But soon, his criminal background started gathering far too much prominence and he was expelled as soon as Akhilesh Yadav became a prominent leader in the Samajwadi Party.
Atiq remained politically dormant for the next two Lok Sabha elections but seems to have had an interesting attempt to return to politics. And this attempt has not gone unnoticed.
There is a rumour doing the rounds of Allahabad that the candidature of Atiq Ahmad is actually the idea of Keshav Prasad Maurya, an old friend of Ahmad. Both Ahmad and Maurya have fought few elections against each other and have also helped each other as and when needed. Many journalists in Allahabad are speculating that Maurya fielded Atiq Ahmad because he wants Atiq to bag Muslim votes in order to weaken the Samajwadi Party alliance.
However, this rumour is refuted by the Muslims of Phulpur, who believe that Ahmad is a serious candidate for the elections. Ehteramuddin ‘Lalu’, a 46-year-old businessman of Bamrauli Market says he strongly believes in Atiq Ahmad, who is fighting as an independent candidate, because, “Atiq Bhai is our leader, irrespective of the reasons his name has been in the news.”
“We have seen Samajwadi Party and Congress. Both have exploited us just to gain our votes, no one has talked about what we have wanted actually,” adds Ehteramuddin. “We always wanted a leader who we could reach or contact any moment.”
An important thing to notice while talking to the Muslims of Phulpur is their stress on the word ‘us’ as a community. While Muslim community uses it to reflect Atiq Ahmad’s pride, Hindu community feels a strong need to vote for BJP in retaliation to Atiq Ahmad. “This is the politics of Allahabad. Here no can see other getting forward with the help of a certain community. If ‘they’ feel Atiq is their leader, why we should not vote for Kaushalendra Ji,” says Pradeep Kumar Agrahari, 31, referring to the BJP candidate who is even being referred as an ‘outsider’.
“I agree that he is an outsider, but when you see someone else do it in the name of secular pride, the outsider factor takes a backseat,” adds Agrahari, stressing on the word ‘Secular’.
Umar Ahmad, the new phenomena in ‘Allahabadi’ politics
Back at Atiq Ahmad’s office, we saw three white SUVs entering the parking area. The middle vehicle is loaded with garlands, marking it as the vehicle of Umar Ahmad, the 19-year-old son of Atiq Ahmad who is managing the campaign for his father from the jail. A bright face with a light beard and a moustache exactly like his father, Umar Ahmad shows the effect of being someone who has just been given a huge political responsibility in the biggest state of the country. Ahmad, who wears glasses, looks sluggish and tired. Soon after stepping out from the vehicle, he asks his companions to call several people inside, adding ‘Chacha’ before every name.
Umar Ahmad is a third-year student of BA-LLB at Amity University in Noida and does not look like someone who is willing to answer what he has been doing and why. “What do you want? Shall I leave my studies?” fires Ahmad when asked about his future.
“Samajwadi Party as well as Bahujan Samaj Party both have betrayed us. They sought our help when they wanted to win an election, but later we were sidelined,” Umar says.
On the question of why not joining a secular alliance against BJP, Umar says, “As Abbu says, we are a secular pole in this fight, but our approach is rather different. We are not joining SP or BSP as they have been appeasing us to exploit our vote.”
Umar might be low on experience, but his public speeches have caught a lot of media as well as voter attention. Mohammad Aslam, a 54-year-old tailor in Chakia area, told us, “His campaign is always about Muslim pride, and sometimes it has turned into Hindu vs Muslim situation which is pretty uncomfortable. But people like his spark, that is why many, including me, are going to vote for him.”
Atiq Ahmad’s campaigners move around the area on several bikes, but almost only in Muslim localities. In fact, a schedule stuck on Umar Ahmad’s cabin shows Ahmad’s public interactions and not surprisingly, all of the areas listed in the schedule are Muslim-majority localities of Allahabad. But Umar denies that he is only trying to gather Muslim votes. “We have been trying to get votes from all the communities, and we are confident that we will get them and teach BJP a lesson in elections,” he says.
But Umar’s claims sound naive when his campaigners talk on the condition of anonymity. One such worker says, “We have been told that who we have to pursue. Our daily job is to go in Muslim dominated localities and distribute pamphlets — which shows Atiq Ahmad behind the bars — and talk about the insensitive attitude of SP and BSP towards the Muslim community.” When asked about what they say about the BJP, the worker replied, “We say that only Atiq Ahmad can defeat BJP.”
People living in mixed or Hindu-majority localities confirm that they have seen almost no presence of campaigners belonging to Atiq Ahmad’s camp. The condition is similar in Muslim localities, where people have not seen BJP workers. They have only seen Samajwadi Party or Atiq Ahmad’s workers. It is another strange fact that no one has witnessed the workers of Peace Party of Dr Ayyub, which has forged alliance with SP, campaigning to vote for the newly-forged alliance.
Pramod Shukla, a veteran journalist based in Allahabad says, “The approach is slightly different in Allahabad compared to other places. BJP indeed is going to win the election after all the tussle, but the real fight is between the SP alliance and Atiq Ahmad for the second position. Atiq has come up as a big help for the BJP as he will cut off the Muslim votes that might go to SP.”
“Even if the rumours are true that Atiq Ahmad is helping BJP by filing nomination, his candidature and claims of teaching the BJP a lesson are going to give him a majority of Muslim votes,” adds Shukla.
It is not as if parties have not tried to confront the Atiq factor. If Congress Party sources are to be believed, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad was trying to pursue Ahmad’s camp to halt their election campaign, but could not succeed. Talking about the BJP, Atiq Ahmad successfully filed his nomination from jail, but soon after his nomination, jail administration started conducting daily raids on Atiq’s jail cell. This was supported by the ‘talk-of-the-town’ that Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of the state, did not like the association between Atiq Ahmad and Keshav Prasad Maurya. Sources inform that Yogi Adityanath wanted to win an election without the interference of Keshav Prasad Maurya, who does not have a good equation with Yogi and wanted the Phulpur ticket for his son.
Even Atiq’s son confirmed the raids on the cell of his father and says, “They are just trying to disrupt our campaign. Sometimes they say that we have the help of BJP, and the next time they conduct raids on the cell. Then they tell the media that they have obtained restricted goods from my father. Does not it looks like something planned to malign the campaign?”
Even when you do not consider Atiq Ahmad, he remains important
Phulpur has not been a regular seat for the Bharatiya Janata Party. But thanks to anti-incumbency and the Modi wave, Keshav Prasad Maurya bagged 52.4% of votes in 2014 general elections and ended up winning the seat by more than 3 lakh votes, making the seat important for the party. But Maurya is answerable to many in Phulpur now for not conducting any “development” works in his constituency. BJP sources inform that current candidate Kaushalendra Singh Patel is going to hold the seat just for a year and that the ticket for 2019 elections will apparently be awarded to Maurya’s wife or son.
BJP is fighting hard and taking as much advantage of Atiq Ahmad’s candidature to consolidate Hindu votes towards itself. A party worker, who met us in Civil Lines based election office of BJP says, “Atiq Ahmad’s candidature is like a blessing in disguise for BJP. The outsider vs insider argument is getting subsided slowly and people feel that there is need to put BJP in the main focus to defeat a criminal like him.”
When TwoCircles.net tried to question BJP’s officials about the correlation between Atiq Ahmad’s candidature and its relation with BJP leaders, we are told almost nothing. Leaders sought help from party’s particular line – “A criminal can never have such relations with BJP or its national leaders. The fact is just a rumour. We ask people to defeat such sectarian forces who claim to be ‘secular’.”
SP and BSP managed to get 20% and 17% votes respectively in 2014 elections, while Congress was reduced to 6% and still searching chances to revive the election race. Akhilesh Yadav conducted a road-show and rally on Friday, where a fair number of BSP supporters were also visible. For SP, Atiq Ahmad is a “Sarkari Candidate” (government-backed candidate) who is fighting to cut Muslim votes to help BJP.
Apart from the Muslim minority, Phulpur constituency has a dominance of Yadavas, Patels, and Maurya voters, all of which are being worked upon seriously by both the SP and BJP. There is also a sizeable number of people from the Bind and Pasi community in Phulpur over whom Indrajeet Saroj, former BSP leader who is now in SP has a good grip. BSP’s decision to support SP for the by-poll has added a few positive points to Samajwadi Party, which is fighting hard to break into Muslim votes.
One can say that in the final days of the election campaign, the attention has turned towards Atiq Ahmad. Ramji Rai, Allahabad-based writer, poet, and editor of monthly ‘Samkaleen Janmat’, comments, “The politics of Allahabad is all different now. Values do not matter anymore. If you do something just at the time of the election, that does not materialise in terms of mandate very easily,” while talking about SP alliance. He further says, “On both sides, secularism comes as a need now. Parties should deal with secularism with priority to avoid such condition where Muslims and Hindus stand against each other.”