CURATED BY – GAURAV SINGHAL | CITYCHIEFNEWS

Saharanpur, BJP can announce its candidate for number one Saharanpur Lok Sabha seat in a day or two. According to reliable sources, the BJP high command is brainstorming the names of former sugarcane minister Suresh Rana, former MP Raghav Lakhanpal Sharma and Swami Dipankar Maharaj. The party leadership wants to select a winning candidate this time. This time there are 18 lakh 50 thousand 85 voters in this seat which has 39 percent Muslim and 20 percent Dalit majority. Of which 9 lakh 77 thousand 567 are men, 8 lakh 72 thousand 429 are women and 89 are of third gender. In the last elections, Fazalur Rehman Qureshi of SP supported BSP had taken 5 lakh 14 thousand 139 i.e. 41.89 percent votes. Defeated BJP candidate Raghav Lakhanpal Sharma had got 4 lakh 91 thousand 722 votes i.e. 40.06 percent votes. Imran Masood of Congress had taken 2 lakh 7 thousand 68 votes which was 16.87 percent.
BJP had won the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Its candidate Raghav Lakhanpal Sharma had taken 4 lakh 72 thousand 999 votes. Imran Masood of Congress had taken 4 lakh 7 thousand 909 votes. BSP's Jagdish Rana got 2 lakh 35 thousand 33 votes. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, there were a total of 16 lakh 8 thousand 823 votes on this seat. There are five assembly constituencies under Saharanpur Lok Sabha seat. SP has control over Behat and Saharanpur Dehat. Whereas there are BJP MLAs from Deoband, Rampur Maniharan and Saharanpur cities.

This time Modi is riding on the Ram wave in Uttar Pradesh. The popularity and credibility of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is also a winning factor for BJP. SP-Congress alliance has declared Imran Masood, the most popular and powerful leader here, as its candidate. Imran Masood's real uncle Qazi Rasid Masood has been Lok Sabha MP from here in 1977, 1980, 1989, 1991, 2004. That means he has been an MP at most five times. In the first elections of 1952, Ajit Prasad Jain, close to Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, was elected MP. Four Dalit leaders Sunder Lal were MPs from Congress in 1957, 1962, 1967 and 1971. In 1984, Chaudhary Yashpal Singh won the election from Congress. After that Congress could never win elections here. Chaudhary Nakli Singh of BJP had given this seat to BJP for the first time in 1996. He had won in 1998 also. Opened account here for the first time in BSP during 1999 elections. Mansoor Ali Khan was elected MP. BSP won again in 2009. This time the elected MP was Jagdish Rana. Who belonged to Rajput community. Jagdish Rana has been the only MP to win from this seat as a Rajput. BJP again captured this seat in 2014 and Raghav Lakhanpal Sharma won and reached the Lok Sabha. This means that till now BJP has been able to win this seat only thrice. The important thing in favor of BJP on this seat is the presence of 25 percent upper caste voters here. If the Gurjar Rajput and Saini voters along with the upper castes vote unitedly in Saharanpur seat, then the BJP candidate can win despite it being a Muslim dominated seat. BJP will be able to win here only if its candidate succeeds in polarizing the Hindu voters and it is on this point that BJP would like to select its candidate. Polarization is certain with the entry of Imran Masood into the fray. However, Bahujan Samaj Party is fielding District Panchayat member and Muslim Gada community's Majid Ali. How much relief it can be for BJP will be known only from the election results.