Tabassum Hasan Muslim mascot in 2019 Lok Sabha elections

Even as Tabassum Hasan was elected on a Rashtriya Lok Dal ticket from Kairana, Samajwadi Party is set to project her as its Muslim mascot in the run up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. 

Te newly elected MP’s son Nahid Hasan is a Samajwadi Party MLA from Kairana Assembly seat and her late husband Munawwar Hasan had also been a SP MP from Kairana and Muzaffarnagar.

“Akhilesh Yadav had prevailed upon Rashtriya Lok Dal’s Jayant Chaudhary to let Tabassum Hasan contest the Kairana Lok Sabha seat on RLD symbol. The RLD  was desperate to contest on its election symbol for its survival after being reduced to a non entity for not having a single MLA, MLA or MP,’’ explained a senior SP leader.

“The mother-son duo, armed with Munawwar Hasan’s legacy and local appeal, could now be key weapons for the SP in west UP - a region where the SP has been weak as compared to the BSP earlier, and now the BJP,’’ said the SP leader. 

“The Hasan family is back in power and can take on the BJP’s Jat leadership in Shamli, Baghpat and Muzaffarnagar led by former Union minister of state and  MP, Sanjeev Baliyan and Union minister of state and Baghpat MP, Satyapal Singh,’’ he said.

“The SP brass is confident that with RLD’s symbol, Jats could back them as well. Akhilesh’ move to promote the Hasan family has pleased his father Mulayam Singh Yadav too, who went out of his way to promote Munawwar as he saw in him an emerging political leader of west UP,” a senior SP said.

Before Munawwar Hasan’s death in a road accident in 2008, he was twice MP from Kairana and Muzaffarnagar and Mulayam Singh had surprised everyone by sending Munawwar to Rajya Sabha. His father, Akhtar Hasan, was also an MP from Kairana in 1984. 

Tabassum Hasan’s win caps for now Hukum Singh’s political legacy – the two families have long been political rivals with communal overtones. During the poll campaign, Mriganka Singh had said that everyone knew who had patronised criminals who tormented Hindu families, leading to their migration from Kairana. 

Since 1952, the BJP won Lok Sabha election in Kairana only in 2014. Hukum Singh was MLA from Kairana segment from 1996. He lost to Munawwar Hasan from this seat in 1993. Now, Hasan’s wife has beaten Singh’s daughter to turn the tables on the ruling party. 

Recalling events of 2017 Assembly poll, A SP leader said, “After conceding more than 100 seats to Congress, and amidst a family tussle with his father Mulayam Singh, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav could not spare a ticket for Tabassum Hasan in 2017 Assembly poll and urged her to stick on.’’

Now, elected as the first Muslim MP from UP in this Look Sabha, Tabassum and her family could be the combined opposition’s trump card in west UP in the run-up to the 2019 general elections.