SBSP steps up activity in Mau to stake claim for bypoll ticket

Time of India

09-07-2025

Lucknow: BJP ally Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party has begun spadework to stake claim for contesting the Mau assembly bypoll — necessitated after the disqualification of SBSP MLA and late gangster-politician Mukhtar Ansari's son Abbas Ansari, after his conviction in a hate speech case.
SBSP chief and UP panchayati Raj minister Om Prakash Rajbhar told TOI that the party has deployed its functionaries at the booth and sector levels to bolster the organisational structure. He said party functionaries of various castes have been stationed in villages to organise 'chaupals' (village meetings). Rajbhar said the party will hold more than two dozen chaupals every day in Mau, which has a sizable population of Rajbhars, who form the party's core vote base.
Rajbhar's focus on chaupals and booth-level mobilisation, especially in a constituency with a strong Rajbhar presence, is being seen as an effort to cement SBSP's status as the voice of non-dominant OBCs while projecting the party as not just a BJP ally, but a grassroots force in its own right. The party, experts said, might also be testing its bargaining power with the BJP, besides increasing its legislative presence and visibility ahead of the 2027 UP elections.
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nterestingly, the constituency is dominated by Muslims, who comprise around 35% of the total electorate. This voting bloc has traditionally been aligned with the Ansari family for nearly two decades. Mukhtar won the seat twice on a BSP ticket (in 1996 and 2017), twice as an independent (2002 and 2007), and once as a Quami Ekta Dal (QED) candidate in 2012. Mukhtar died in Banda jail following a cardiac arrest in 2024.
His son Abbas won the seat in 2022 on an SBSP ticket, which was then an ally of the Samajwadi Party. He defeated BJP's Ashok Singh by a margin of 48,000 votes. Rajbhar, however, snapped ties and joined the BJP-led NDA in 2023. Rajbhar reiterated that his party was a runner-up in the seat in 2017 and won it in 2022. "Mau has been our constituency. We groomed it for long," Rajbhar asserted. Sources said that Rajbhar's elder son, Arvind, camped in the constituency to oversee the political spadework.
A senior SBSP leader mentioned that Rajbhar seeks to play up the issue of social justice and sub-division of OBC and SC quota. BJP sources, however, said that a formal decision on who would contest the Mau bypoll would be taken after the Election Commission issues the notification for the same. Speculations have been rife that the bypoll may be held along with the Bihar assembly elections later this year.
"The byelection in Mau would be contested by NDA. A broader consensus would be drawn soon," a BJP functionary said, asserting that all poll parameters would be factored in before any decision is taken. Nevertheless, analysts said, the BJP sought to formulate its strategy on the lines of by-polls in the Muslim-dominated Kundarki and Rampur assembly seats, which it won in 2024 and 2022, respectively.