Is PM Modi's Baghpat mega rally a BJP trump card for Kairana bypoll?

While the Opposition rejoices over the Congress-JDS victory in Karnataka floor test, interpreting it as positive signal for the 2019 General Elections, the BJP is silently working on its strategy to win the prestige battle of Kairana.

This important constituency in the Jat land of western Uttar Pradesh goes to polls on May 28. The Kairana bypoll was necessitated following the death of its sitting BJP MP, Hukum Singh, in February this year.

Learning its lessons from the disaster of Gorakhpur and Phulpur bypolls, the BJP is leaving no stone unturned in Kairana.

Many senior leaders including Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy CMs Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma are scheduled to address public rallies in Kairana.

But the BJP has saved the best for the last. In what can be called as a trump card of the saffron party in the crucial bypolls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a mega rally in adjoining Baghapt on May 27. While the election campaigning in Kairana come to an end on May 26, PM Modi’s rally in Baghpat a day later will trounce Opposition’s strategy.

In Baghpat, PM Modi will inaugurate the Eastern Peripheral Expressway. The decision will also meet the Supreme Court order. On May 10, the top court had directed the authorities to throw open the 135-km long expressway for the public by the month-end. 

While BJP is banking on its star campaigner, the Opposition is relying on its unity. Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal is said to have fielded a ‘united opposition’ candidate. 

"We have decided to field Tabassum Begum from Kairana parliamentary constituency," Uttar Pradesh RLD chief Masood Ahmad was quoted as saying.

A former BSP lawmaker from Kairana, the 47-year-old, who had later joined the Samajwadi Party, is a popular face in the Jat-dominated constituency in western Uttar Pradesh, around 100 km from New Delhi.

The BJP, on the other hand, has fielded Mriganka Singh as party’s candidate for the bypoll. Singh is daughter of late lawmaker Hukum Singh, whose death necessitated the bypoll. 

The BJP also announced that Avani Singh, the wife of late MLA Lokendra Chauhan, will be its candidate from Noorpur in the state.

Voting for the Kairana and Noorpur bypolls will be held on May 28 and the results will be declared on May 31. 

The Kairana Lok Sabha seat has around 17 lakh voters, including three lakh Muslims, four lakh backward castes (Jat, Gujjar, Saini, Kashyap, Prajapati and others) and about 1.5 lakh Dalits. 

Kairana parliamentary constituency comprises five Assembly segments -- Shamli, Thanabhawan, Kairana (all in Shamli district), Gangoh and Nakur (Saharanpur district). 

In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, BJP's Hukum Singh had bagged 5,65,909 votes as against his nearest rival, Nahid Hasan of the SP, who had secured 3,29,081 votes. 

In Noorpur, BJP's Chauhan had bagged 79 .