In UP bye-poll, a Muslim candidate seeks the support of Hindu Rajputs

Samajwadi Party leader Kadir Rana has not been shy of wearing his caste identity on his sleeve as he hits the road to campaign for his daughter-in-law Sumbul Rana who is fighting the bye-poll for Uttar Pradesh’s Mirapur Assembly seat on November 20.

“When he came to campaign here, Rana Sahab highlighted that he and us belong to the same biradari” or community, said Pappu Singh, a Rajput in Bihargarh, a village with a nearly 70% Rajput population located 35 kilometres from Muzaffarnagar.

When Scroll asked Kadir Rana about reports that he and his family, who hail from the Muslim Rajput community, were aiming to invoke to their caste ties to Hindu Rajputs in the constituency, he responded with a chuckle. “I do not need to make any appeals,” he said. Rajputs “know who pays heed to them and who does not”.

A party official sitting next to him added that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath of the Bharatiya Janata Party is a Thakur, a name by which the Rajput community is also known. “… But what has the BJP done for them?” he asked.

Rajputs account for only about 15,000 of the nearly 3.15 lakh voters in the Mirapur constituency, according to estimates by locals. Though this number might appear to be small, the Samajwadi Party has good reason to be seeking some support from the community. The battle for the constituency’s 1.15 lakh Muslim votes and close to 60,000 Dalit votes is expected to be intense.

Both the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Chandrshekhar Azad-led Azad Samaj Party have fielded candidates from the Jhojha community – the largest caste group among Muslims in Mirapur. Also in the fray is a candidate from Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen.

Winning some votes from Hindu Rajputs could prove crucial for Sumbul Rana.

Caste ties

Kadir Rana’s confidence that Sumbul Rana will gain some support from Hindu Rajputs does not seem to be entirely misplaced. When voters in Bihargarh were asked if she would get some votes from Hindus, they nodded in assent. They cited Kadir Rana’s popularity and the fact that his family hailed from their caste group as the reasons.

Also obvious in the conversations was anger against the BJP for purportedly undermining Rajputs – a sentiment that had also hurt the Hindutva party in the Lok Sabha elections. They are upset by the lack of tickets for leaders from their community.

The fact that Rajputs in Muzaffarnagar are not entirely rejecting a Muslim candidate is significant. The BJP had capitalised on the communal violence in the western Uttar Pradesh town in 2013 to consolidate Hindu votes across caste lines to pull off stunning victories in Uttar Pradesh in Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha.

But as the party came in second in Uttar Pradesh to the Samajwadi Party in the 2024 general elections, anger among Rajputs was seen as one of the reasons. The Samajwadi Party is looking to benefit from this faultline and gain support from across the religious divide as it faces a multi-cornered contest for Muslim votes in Mirapur.

The ‘Rana Sahab’ factor

Sumbul Rana is making a debut in electoral politics, but she comes from a political lineage. Her father was a Bahujan Samaj Party MP. Her father-in-law Kadir Rana had won the Muzaffarnagar Lok Sabha seat in 2009. Scroll was unable to speak to her as she has rarely interacted with the media during her campaign. Sajid Hassan, a Samajwadi Party media coordinator in Muzaffarnagar, said that Kadir Rana was speaking to the media on her behalf and chalking out her campaign strategy.

Sandeep Saini, a local journalist told Scroll that one reason for this arrangement is the fact that Sumbul Rana is media savvy. Kadir Rana’s clout in the area is another. “Rana Sahab is a tall figure here, nobody can ignore him,” Saini said, when asked if some Hindu Rajputs would vote for the Samajwadi Party.

Saini added that the Samajwadi Party was looking to emulate the “Iqra Hasan model” in Mirapur.

Iqra Hasan, the 30-year-old newly elected Samajwadi Party MP from neighbouring Kairana, also belongs to a political family. Support from some sections of Hindus was seen as a key factor in her winning on her debut in parliamentary elections earlier this year. Hasan was actively involved in Sumbul Rana’s campaign, Saini said.

“It helps that Rana Sahab too enjoys popularity among Hindus,” he said.

Kadir Rana agreed that reaching out to Hindus was crucial. “It is the BJP’s strategy to polarise Hindus and Muslims,” he said. “Not only is this divisive, but in the Lok Sabha election we have seen that this does not always work. If some Hindus vote for us, this conspiracy can be defeated.”

But will the Hindu Rajputs of Mirapur actually vote on the basis of caste, or will their traditional support for the BJP override that? Singh said that while most Rajputs would continue to support BJP leader Mithlesh Pal, who is contesting on a ticket of the Hindutva party’s ally, the Rashtriya Lok Dal, some voters from the community might side with the Samajwadi Party. “As things stand today, two out of 10 of us could vote for Sumbul Rana,” he told Scroll.

This was because Kadir Rana had good relations with all communities, Rajputs in Bihargarh affirmed. Another reason was the Rajput anger against the BJP that has been bubbling since the lead up to the Lok Sabha elections. Budhram Chauhan, a former village head in Bihargarh, complained that the BJP did not give tickets in the Lok Sabha polls to candidates recommended by Chief Minister Adityanath, a Rajput himself.

Chauhan and several other Rajput voters also brought up the comments ahead of the Lok Sabha election by the BJP’s Rajkot candidate Parshottam Rupala, who had said in a speech that Rajput kings had forged family ties with foreign rulers. Though Rupala apologised for his comments, the BJP did not replace him as the candidate as Rajput groups had demanded.

“Support for the BJP runs in my veins, and I will vote for the party [BJP-supported RLD candidate] this time too, but the party should pay heed to our grievances,” Chauhan said.

Could Rajput votes be crucial in Mirapur?

Amit Malik, the head of sociology department in Muzaffarnagar’s DAV College, told Scroll that Sumbul Rana’s fortunes largely depend on how many Dalits and Muslims see the Samajwadi Party as the contender most likely to defeat the BJP. “If there is a division of votes in these sections, especially in Jhojha Muslims, it will become a tight race,” said Malik.

On the ground, Scroll noticed some obvious support for the Azad Samaj Party candidate Zahid Hussain. On Thursday, Husain was holding street corner meetings in Kakrauli village, where Jhojha Muslims and Chamar Dalits form more than 75% of the population. Hussain was greeted with loud cheers as he targeted the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party for “weakening the fight against the BJP” by fielding candidates.

“Both BSP and SP want to stop our party from winning even if that results in a win for the BJP [backed] candidate,” Hussain told Scroll.

Malik, the sociology professor, said that the BJP-Rashtriya Lok Dal choice of Mithlesh Pal as the candidate was intended to also blunt the Samajwadi Party’s reach among the Other Backward Classes. Pal belongs to the Gadariya caste, which is cateogorised as an Extremely Backward Caste. She was picked over Ajit Rathi, a Jat contender for the ticket, in a ploy to attract not just the Gadariya voters, but also other backward caste groups like Sainis, Kashyaps and Kumhars, Malik said.

Journalist Sandeep Saini concurred. There are 10,000 to 15,000 voters from each of these caste groups in Mirapur. If they consolidate, this could be a decisive factor, Saini said.

Giving bye-election tickets to candidates from backward caste groups is the BJP’s strategy to counter the Samajwadi Party’s PDA formula, he said. PDA, or “Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak” (backward castes, Dalits and minorities) us an acronym made popular by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav during the Lok Sabha elections as he campaigned for support from these groups.

“In this seat, the Samajwadi Party is facing competition for votes from all three sections of PDA,” Saini said. “Maybe that is also a reason why they are looking for some Rajput votes.”

All photos by Abhik Deb.