Azamgarh: In the Lok Sabha elections, Azamgarh seat was the most discussed seat after Varanasi and Gorakhpur in Purvanchal. Taking revenge for the defeat in the by-election, SP conquered this old fort again. Discussion has started on the reasons behind the defeat of BJP’s Nirahua at the hands of Dharmendra Yadav from Mulayam Singh Yadav’s clan.
Due to Azamgarh MP Akhilesh Yadav vacating the seat after becoming an MLA, in the by-election held in 2022, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav fielded family member Dharmendra Yadav to save his stronghold. To capture the Yadav and Muslim dominated seat Azamgarh, BJP fielded Dinesh Lal Yadav Nirahua from the Yadav community and won the by-election. After winning the by-election, it was believed that Dinesh Lal Yadav Nirahua would challenge the SP clan from Azamgarh in the 2024 general elections as well.
That is what happened. Nirahua was made the BJP candidate. BJP put in all its efforts to ensure Nirahua’s victory. Rallies of top leaders were held. From Modi to Yogi, everyone tried to gather votes for Nirahua, but Nirahua could not do any miracle this time. Dharmendra Yadav brought the seat back to his clan with a big margin. Dharmendra Yadav grabbed this seat by 161035 votes. Dharmendra got 508239 votes and Nirahua got 347204 votes. BSP’s Masood Shabih Ansari got 179839 votes.
According to the data, Nirahua lagged behind even in the assembly constituencies of Sagdi, Mehanagar and Azamgarh Sadar in the by-elections where he had broken the Samajwadi fort by taking a lead of about sixteen thousand votes. Dharmendra Yadav has taken a strong lead in Mubarakpur and Gopalpur this time.
Many reasons are coming to light behind Nirahua’s defeat from Azamgarh. If the people of Azamgarh are to be believed, there were many development works worth counting like Music College, flights started from Azamgarh Airport and Suheldev University, but Nirahua used to make sharp attacks on Akhilesh Yadav and his family. Direct attack on Akhilesh Yadav hurt the Yadav voters of Azamgarh. Which was avenged through votes.
Nirahua’s lack of communication with the people is also considered to be a big reason for the defeat. Most of the people say that Nirahua used to be surrounded by some special type of people. Due to which common people and ordinary BJP workers could not reach him easily. This also gradually increased the resentment. In Azamgarh, due to the efforts of the central and state government, wide and good roads have been built for big cities, but the roads connecting the villages were in a bad condition. Nirahua did not pay the required attention to this during his two-year tenure.
According to the political pundits of Azamgarh, there was no enthusiasm among the BJP workers towards Nirahua. Which the leadership could not understand. They believe that this time it would have been better to field a local instead of an outsider Nirahua. At the same time, the absence of a strong Muslim leader like Guddu Jamali from BSP also did not prove beneficial for the BJP. The Muslim candidate of BSP did sluggish campaigning throughout the election. Apart from this, Dinesh Lal Yadav Nirahua’s coordination with the local organization was also not good. As if the shooting of some of his films was going on, there was a lot of interference of outsiders in the campaign. They were setting up the field like a film unit. They did not understand the local political needs. It is believed that due to these reasons BJP lost Azamgarh.
