Can BJP Replicate Its Rampur Success in Kundarki Bypoll With A Hindu Candidate In A Muslim-Dominated Seat?

The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) victory in the Rampur assembly bypoll two years ago was historic as it dented the Samajwadi Party (SP) bastion. A repeat of this can be seen in the Kundarki bypoll scheduled for 20 November.

Kundarki is an assembly seat in the Moradabad district but falls under the Sambhal Lok Sabha constituency. It was vacated by young SP leader Zia Ur Rehman Barq on winning the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Sambhal.

There are various similarities between Kundarki and Rampur. Being Muslim-dominated seats, these constituencies have elected only a Muslim representative for decades.

In Kundarki town, there are 81.54 per cent Muslims. The constituency has only elected a Muslim candidate in the last three decades. Similarly, Rampur town has 70 per cent Muslims and has elected only a Muslim candidate in the last five decades.

However, this winning streak of Muslim candidates was broken in Rampur in 2022 when BJP's Akash Saxena won by defeating SP's Mohammed Asim Raja. This can happen in Kundarki too, let's understand how.

What's Working For BJP In Kundarki

The Rampur bypoll witnessed a bipolar fight between the SP and the BJP. But in Kundarki, the BJP can take advantage of Muslim vote division among Muslim candidates of SP, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Owaisi's AIMIM.

The BJP is the only major party to field a Hindu candidate, Ramvir Singh Thakur. He is a Rajput by caste but has been making outreach efforts among the Muslim community. During campaigns, he was seen wearing an Islamic cap.

Now, he is again facing three-time member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) Mohammed Rizwan as SP candidate, to whom he lost twice. The AIMIM has fielded Mohammad Varish and the BSP Rafatullah.

The BJP last won in Kundarki in 1993. That time too, it had a Rajput candidate, Chandra Vijay Singh. Singh later became a member of Parliament (MP) in 1999 from Sambhal but was defeated in 2004.

Given the past electoral data, the vote gap that Ramvir Singh Thakur needs to cover is small, especially when in the bypolls, the voters generally vote for the incumbent in the hope of development.

Apart from the division of Muslim votes and the shift of certain Muslim votes in favour of the BJP, the party needs one more thing to win: the low voter turnout of the Muslim community.

This was seen in Rampur as well, where a voter turnout of a mere 33.9 per cent was reported in bypoll. This was a sharp dip from 56.67 per cent voting in the assembly general elections held earlier that year.

Generally, also, the voter turnout in bypolls is lesser than in general elections because those against the ruling party decide to sit out instead of casting anti-votes. If this happens in Kundarki too, the BJP can actually win.

While it will not be as big a victory as Rampur, because there, the BJP won for the first time since 1952 when elections began in India. However, it will be the biggest victory of these bypolls, unless BJP wins Akhilesh Yadav's Karhal.