“Rohilkhand is an interesting mix of everything. From wildlife to freedom fighters, from newsmaker politicians to the confusing caste matrix to preference of locals over outsiders ... you get everything here,” says Chandrabhan Singh, a local political worker in Shahjahanpur.

“And yes, the region’s diversity also gets reflected in things like Bareilly’s ‘surma’ (‘kohl’), Pilibhit’s ‘bansuri’ (flute) and the Rampuri ‘chaaku’ (knife),” he adds.

Now, the region is also known for the Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar University of Rampur whose lifetime chancellor is Azam Khan, the Muslim face of the Samajwadi Party.

And like everything else here, this university too, is in the news, less for academic reasons but more because of controversy surrounding its founder.

Only recently the UP BJP government cleared the demolition of Jauhar university’s ‘Urdu gate’, causing a political flutter. Khan alleged the demolition was because the gate was named ‘Urdu’.

“Keep it RSS gate or for that matter Hindu gate if it is required, if you are so opposed to Urdu,” Azam Khan said even as the Rampur district administration pointed out the demolition was because the gate was constructed in violation of the norms.

The Samajwadi Party has now demanded that Rampur DM be changed after Khan threatened that the SP’s local unit would boycott polls if ‘vendetta politics’ continued.

THE MINORITY TANGLE

For many Muslims, Mulayam Singh Yadav, who previously fought polls from Gunnaur assembly segment of Badaun – also part of Rohilkhand – is along with Azam Khan, among the favourite politicians in the region.

The region’s politics is also dominated by the Nawabs, who have from time to time, shifted their loyalties from the Congress to SP and even the BSP.

Rohilkhand has among the heaviest concentration of Muslims. Little wonder, the clerics here are in great demand during elections among political parties, which want the clerics to issue appeal in their favour.

In fact, the SP government in 2013 had even extended minister of state status to prominent Muslim cleric Tauqeer Raza Khan, who is also the president of Ittehad-e-Millat Council.

“Post 2014, polarisation has sharpened in the region,” a local BJP leader says. He admits the BJP’s aggressive campaigning on the triple talaq issue has helped create some support for the party among Muslim women.

In fact, the first support for BJP’s decision to challenge the instant triple talaq divorce law came from two Muslim women of Rohilkhand – Nida Khan from Bareilly and Farhat Naqvi from Rampur.

While Nida Khan, who was earlier married into the family that manages the affairs of the famous Dargah Ala Hazrat, had challenged her divorce in court, Rampur-based Farhat Naqvi is the sister of union minorities minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi. Both women stood firm in their support for abolishing the instant triple talaq law.

POLITICAL PROFILE

Shahjahanpur, Rampur, Aonla, Pilibhit and Badaun are the five Lok Sabha seats in Rohilkhand. Only one, Badaun, bucked the trend in the 2014 LS polls.

It was among the seven of the 80 LS seats from Uttar Pradesh where BJP or its allies failed to win.

This time, faced with a near united opposition – SP-BSP-RLD have teamed up against BJP – the saffron foot brigade is busy marketing its star campaigner Narendra Modi among the rural audience.

“During meetings, we will play a popular political jingle which is beautifully written and sung in order to make an instant impression,” says a local BJP leader.

“Desh ka pardhan mantra janbaaz diler dikhai de, bhajapa ke sheron main, ek babbar sher dikhai de (Country’s Prime Minister is daring and looks dashing and among the BJP tigers, he looks every bit like a lion),” says Sunil Senger, a BJP worker in Shahjahanpur.

“This region is also known for its tiger reserve,” Senger adds, referring to the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, as if explaining the context between the jingle and its popularity in the region.

Despite the BJP’s recent gains in Rohilkhand, the region has mostly voted for the Congress in the past with Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party also making an impression in this highly polarised belt.

WILL THE ALLIANCE MAKE AN IMPACT HERE?

Both sides make expected claims. Congress which is eager to regain its foothold in Uttar Pradesh was the preferred party until BJP and local players arrived.

For instance, till 1976, Congress mostly won in Pilibhit and then barring a brief break again got elected until about 1989 when Congress leader Sanjay Gandhi’s widow Maneka Gandhi arrived here. Though she lost in 1991, she recovered quickly. From 1996 onwards, she never looked back winning a series of elections and making this seat her own. Similarly, the Shahjahanpur (reserved) seat from where BJP’s Krishna Raj won in 2014 LS polls, is known for its association with late RSS chief Rajju Bhaiyya who belonged to this region.

But this LS seat mostly voted for the Congress until 1998 when BJP won the seat for the first time. The only other BJP win was in 2014. This time, the BJP has replaced its sitting MP with Arun Sagar, a senior party functionary from Braj region. The Badaun LS seat has been ‘lucky’ for the Samajwadi Party since 1990s. Even SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav contested elections from Gunnaur assembly segment of Badaun. The SP dominated the seat since 1998. In 2009, Mulayam fielded his nephew Dharmendra Yadav from the seat and he benefitted from the Yadav-Muslim chemistry.

In an attempt to consolidate the non-Yadav OBC vote bank, the BJP has given ticket to former BSP heavyweight and present UP minister Swami Prasad Maurya’s daughter Sangh Mitra Maurya.

Before he severed his nearly two decade long association with Mayawati, Swami Prasad was the OBC face of the BSP. “The idea is to consolidate the non-Yadav OBC vote in the region,” a BJP leader said.

Interestingly in April 2018, a few BJP leaders, including three party lawmakers, had written to the leadership reminding them of Dharmendra Yadav’s popularity in Badaun. In keeping with the trend, the Bareilly and Aonla Lok Sabha seats too have voted for the BJP in the recent past.

First Published: Mar 24, 2019 09:11 IST