In the temple town of Ramnagar, the BSP is facing a litmus test for its social engineering, which had powered the party with absolute majority five years ago. The major crisis of the area, which came in the form of flooding of three-fourth of Ramnagar, is claimed by the sitting BSP MLA Amresh Shukla to have been solved by the Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati.
Ramnagar is among the most sought after religious places, as famous Lodheshwar Mahadev temple is located here. The area also appears to find mention in various Puranas and Mahabh-arata and has one of the rare temples dedicated to Kunti, mother of the Pandavas. Also Argon is said to have brought the Parijata tree, a kalpvriksha, here, which is only of its kind in the country.
Ramnagar used to be ravaged by floods each year due to water released by Nepal. Therefore, every political party used to seek votes on the promises that they would get embankment built on the Ghaghra river.
BSP’s sitting MLA Amresh Shukla, who hops from one place to another to seek reassurance from voters, is confident that the party general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra would again win the Brahmin support.
However, Mr Shukla concedes that he is facing two challenges that Ramnagar has never re-elected a sitting MLA and secondly the Congress candidate Rambir Singh, who is clearly banking on Kurmi and Thakur votebank. The Congress candidate is also hoping to benefit from local party MP B.L. Puniya’s hold on dalit vote base.
Though Ramnagar used to be a political playground of the Samajwadi Party and BJP, the BSP turned the table on them in 2007 by winning support of the upper caste. As far as caste equation is considered, brahmin voters number 33,000, dalit 70,000, Muslim 60,000, Kurmi 38,000. This clearly suggests that the party winning either dalit or Muslims, along with another caste would be in an unassailable position.