Most of the turncoats failed to win their seats in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, which saw the BJP come to power for the second time in a row. The BJP and its alliance partners won 273 of the 403 seats in the assembly, while the Samajwadi Party-led alliance got 125 seats.
Out of 21 turncoats, only four managed to win the election. Of the turncoats, nine were fielded by the BJP and 10 by the Samajwadi Party (SP). Major losers included former UP ministers Swami Prasad Maurya and Dharam Singh Saini, who joined the SP just before the election; and former Mayor of Bareilly Supriya Aaron.
The winners in the turncoat were Aditi Singh (Rae Bareli), Anil Kumar Singh (Purwa) and Manish Kumar (Padrauna), all three contested on BJP tickets; and SP’s Dara Singh Chauhan, who was a minister in the Yogi Adityanath government and contested from Ghosi. Aditi Singh had quit the Congress and recently joined the BJP by contesting from the seat falling under Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s parliamentary constituency.
However, Rakesh Singh, who contested on a BJP ticket from Harchandpur in Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat, failed to win his seat. Instead of ideology, it is opportunism that is at play when such leaders switch sides, said Sanjir Alam, Associate Professor at CSDS.
He said, “It is not because of affiliation or preference for a party’s ideology. Today the term opportunism has become prominent for people who change party. It should be seen at macro- and micro-levels. At the macro-level, if any. If the candidate feels that the circumstances are in favor of a particular party, he can switch sides.” “At the micro level, it is electoral dynamics at the constituency level or to cover up poor performance. Ideology has nothing to do with it,” Alam said. Those who contested on BJP ticket but lost are Rakesh Singh (Harchandpur), Naresh Saini (Behat), Bandana Singh (Sagri), Ramveer Upadhyay (Sadabad), Subhash Pasi (Saidpur) and Hariom Yadav (Sirsaganj). Those contesting on SP ticket include Brajesh Prajapati (Tindwari), Roshan Lal Verma (Tilhar), Bhagwati Sagar (Ghatampur), Digvijay Narayan (Khalilabad), Madhuri Verma (Nanpara) and Vinay Shankar Tripathi (Chillupar).
Haider Ali Khan, who joined Apna Dal (Sonelal) after being declared the Congress candidate by voice, lost to Abdullah Azam of SP by over 61,000 votes. Surendra Singh, who had joined Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP) after being denied a ticket by the BJP, came third and got 28,615 votes. Surendra Singh had earlier been in controversy with his statements and had vowed to defeat the party from Bairiya after not giving him a ticket.
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