The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is gearing up for the fast-approaching 2024 Lok Sabha elections, with a special focus on seats that the party is more concerned about than during the last elections, especially those that could not be won last time. While the BJP has begun campaigning, exclusive information from party insiders suggested that 11 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh have become a cause of concern for the party and efforts to settle scores will be taken through different programmes that are scheduled to be conducted in the state. Observers say that the victory or defeat in these 11 seats will be a litmus test for the BJP in Uttar Pradesh.
Nagina Lok Sabha Seat
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Girish Chandra of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) won from the Nagina seat, with the BJP’s Yashwant Singh coming in second. Of the total population in Nagina, 29 percent is Hindu and 70 percent is Muslim.
Azamgarh Lok Sabha Seat
Former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav was MP from Azamgarh Lok Sabha seat. In 2014 Yadav defeated BJP’s Ramakant Yadav and BSP’s Shah Alam alias Guddu Jamali by a huge margin. The constituency comprises five seats in the UP Assembly, of which Mehnagar is reserved for Scheduled Castes. The population is 84 percent Hindu and 15 percent Muslim.
Moradabad Lok Sabha Seat
SP candidate from the alliance Dr ST Hasan defeated BJP candidate Kunwar Sarvesh Singh by 97,878 votes. Dr Hasan got 6,49,416 votes while BJP got 5,51,538 votes. INC candidate Imran Pratapgarhi got 59,198 votes. As of 2019, the total number of voters in Moradabad Lok Sabha is around 1,941,200. In this, the number of Muslim voters is around 8,80,000, more than 45 percent of total votes.
If sources are to be believed, the report from BJP’s internal survey is worrisome and tried and tested formulas may not work here. The party is therefore in need of a different strategy for these seats.
