There couldn’t be a bigger irony for Uma Bharti than this.
The two men she detested and despised and even threatened to pull out of campaigning because of them, are proving to be the biggest assets in her campaign for the Charkhari seat in Mahoba district.
The two sacked BSP ministers — Babu Singh Kushwaha and Badshah Singh — are emerging as major factors in Bundelkhand and both are proving advantageous to Ms Bharti who is making her political debut in UP with these elections.
Mr Kushwaha, whose entry into the BJP in January kicked up a huge controversy, has been addressing a series of OBC sammelans in central, eastern UP and Bundelkhand. His completely unpublicised meetings have been drawing huge crowds, the one in Attarra in Banda three days ago, was as big, if not bigger than the ones addressed by national leaders. A senior BJP leader admitted that Mr Kushwaha was proving to be an asset for the BJP because he has successfully polarised the non-Yadav, non-Kurmi OBC votes in favour of the BJP on the quota-within-quota issue.
“In fact, it is Uma Bharti who will enjoy maximum advantage of the Kushwaha factor because he is helping her polarise the OBC votes. She may like it or not but we hope she will admit that she has benefited because of Kushwaha. In fact, all our candidates in Bundelkhand are benefiting because of him,” the leader confided.
BJP president Nitin Gadkari has already admitted that the BJP will not suffer due to the Kushwaha factor.
Another sacked BSP minister, Badshah Singh, who is now contesting the Mahoba seat on a BJP symbol, is also successfully attracting Thakur votes for the party. Mr Singh, a strongman of the Bundelkhand badlands, heads the infamous ‘Insaaf Sena’ that was set up almost two decades ago to raise the demand for Bundelkhand state.