BJP Eyes Sitapur Seat it has Not Won Since 1996 as 2-time SP MLA Joins BJP

Days after Rakesh Rathore, Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Sitapur, joined the Samajwadi Party, the party appears to have reciprocated the move with Samajwadi Party MLA Subhash Pasi joining the saffron in Lucknow on Monday.

Pasi, MLA from Saidpur assembly seat of Ghazipur, will join the party at around 1 pm. The move comes just days after the SP appointed Pasi’s wife as the National Secretary of the SP Mahila Sabha.

Pasi will join BJP in the presence of BJP in-charge Radha Mohan Singh and state president Swatantra Dev Singh. Earlier, he had met Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath in Lucknow. He is a two-time MLA from Saidpur seat.

The BJP has not won the Saidpur assembly seat of Ghazipur since 1996. In the last four elections, the SP-BSP candidate has won twice. Mahendra Nath won on the BJP ticket in 1996 on the BJP ticket. This was followed by the victory of Kailash Nath Singh and Dinanath Pandey of BSP in 2002 and 2007.

In the 2012 and 2017 UP assembly elections, Pasi won the seat on an SP ticket. With him now joining the BJP, the party hopes it will be able to put Saidpur seat in its kitty once again.

Caste equations have always dominated the election results of Saidpur assembly. Dalit and Yadav voters play an important role in this town where the total number of voters is 3,55,181.

The number of Dalit voters is around 75,000 and the number of Yadav voters stands at 70,000. There are about 26,000 Muslims, 22,000 Kushwaha, 11,000 Bind, 12,000 Chauhan, 33,000 Rajbhar and 17,000 Brahmin voters.