Asad Shaikh, TwoCircles.net
About 100 kilometers from Delhi, in Meerapur, the cold weather is slowly intensifying, with a light mist now visible in the mornings and evenings. However, the haze of communal violence that shrouded the region 11 years ago is beginning to fade.
The by-election for the Meerapur assembly seat is scheduled for November 13. This area in Muzaffarnagar district of western Uttar Pradesh had also made headlines during the Kanwar Yatra over the issue of shop nameplates.
What are the present conditions of the seat, status of candidates and local issues playing role in the upcoming by? Let’s try to understand.
Kawal, the village where the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots began, lies within Meerapur. Since then, the strained relationship between Jats and Muslims has shown some signs of improvement. Leaders like Jayant Chaudhary and Akhilesh Yadav have played a role in easing tensions, but with Jayant now serving as a minister in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Central government, things have changed. In Meerapur, both Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD)’s Mithlesh Pal and the BJP’s candidate are in the fray.
BJP’s firebrand leader Sanjeev Balyan lost the 2024 general elections in Muzaffarnagar despite his party’s alliance with the RLD, which has a stronghold in the area, Samajwadi Party’s (SP) Harendra Malik won the seat and became an MP. However, the region, which has a large population of sugarcane farmers, does not seem to be as united in its demands for better payments for their crops, particularly after the RLD allied with the BJP.
The condition of farmers in the region is well outlined in The Rural Voice’s report, which states: “Sugarcane harvesting began on October 1, but the Uttar Pradesh government has yet to announce the State Advisory Price (SAP) for the crop. Ideally, farmers should know the price before sowing their crops, but here, they are forced to sell their sugarcane to mills without knowing the price.”
Farmers are still waiting for payments for their crops, and many continue to hold protests outside the mills.
Meanwhile, RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary, who traditionally represented farmers, has been silent on the issue as he now aligns with the BJP in both the state and the Central governments.
In this by-election, the SP has fielded Sumbul Rana, the daughter-in-law of former Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MP Qadir Rana, one of the accused in the Muzaffarnagar riots, as their joint candidate with the Congress party.
Meerapur has around 140,000 Muslim voters, along with large populations of Gurjar, Jat, Pal and Prajapati communities. The region is predominantly agricultural, with a strong influence of farming families.
In 2022, due to their alliance with the SP, Muslims actively participated in the election, but the results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections revealed that the Muslim and Gurjar votes did not go to the RLD as expected.
However, there has been an apparent shift in the mood as several well-known Jat and Gurjar leaders have expressed their concerns. The RLD has decided to field a Scheduled Caste (SC) woman as its candidate, signalling a potential change in dynamics.
On this, Siyasat’s Editor Nahid Fatima says, “Jayant Chaudhary has completely surrendered to the BJP. His decision to field Mithilesh Pal as a candidate is the biggest evidence of this. Now, when the RLD leaders will not even contest elections from their own party, who will? This raises a critical question for the survival of the party.”
Despite the RLD not giving tickets to candidates from the Jat and Gurjar communities in Meerapur, Jayant has held panchayats urging voters to support the SP.
On the other hand, Khalid Iqbal, a journalist from western UP, says, “Akhilesh Yadav could never have given a ticket to Qadir Rana, who is accused of riots. However, giving equal representation to Muslims is necessity, as Akhilesh wants to fully consolidate Jat and Muslim votes under his PDA – a social coalition of Pichda (backwards), Dalits and Alpsankhyak (minorities). That’s why SP MLA and Jat leader Pankaj Malik is openly campaigning for Rana.”
This by-election will answer several key questions: Will Jats and Muslims vote for the SP together despite Jayant’s alliance with the BJP? Is Jayant benefitting the BJP in any way? Akhilesh has fielded a Muslim candidate as part of his PDA—will Muslim voters still support candidates from his party or will they turn to other Muslim candidates?
The results of this by-election will likely provide answers to these pressing questions. Meanwhile, the farmers, who feel sidelined by both the RLD and the BJP, are waiting for their voices to be heard. The fate of their issues, such as fair compensation for their sugarcane, remains a looming question.