BJP sees opportunity to wrest Mukhtar family's traditional Mau seat in bypoll

Lucknow: The disqualification of Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) MLA Abbas Ansari from Mau Sadar assembly seat following his conviction in a hate speech case has necessitated byelection on the seat.
All eyes are now on the BJP-led NDA which sees a chance to wrest the constituency which has been a stronghold of late gangster-politician
Mukhtar Ansari
and his family for nearly two decades.
Mukhtar's son Abbas Ansari won the seat in 2022 on SBSP ticket, which was then an ally of the Samajwadi Party. Now, SBSP is BJP's ally. Abbas had defeated BJP's Ashok Singh by 48,000 votes. The Mau Sadar seat was represented by Mukhtar since 1996 – twice on a BSP ticket (1996 and 2017), twice as an independent (2002 and 2007), and once as a Quami Ekta Dal candidate in 2012.
Mukhtar died following a cardiac arrest while being lodged in Banda jail in Mar 2024.
Party sources said BJP's organisational machinery has hit the ground running in the Muslim-dominated constituency. Sources said the party plans to build a groundswell on the lines of Muslim-dominated Rampur and Kundarki assembly seats, which the BJP won in byelections in 2022 and 2024, respectively.
UP BJP chief Bhupendra Chaudhary said the party is working among the people in the district.
"We will intensify the groundwork in the coming days," he said, adding that the party's central leadership would decide the candidate after due consultation. "The byelection on Mau would be contested by the NDA. Whether it would be BJP or SBSP will be decided in due course," he said.
SBSP, too, has staked its claim to contest from the seat. SBSP president and UP minister Om Prakash Rajbhar said his party, which has been a strong contender in Mau Sadar, would seek to contest the byelection with BJP's support.
Rajbhar emphasised that the SBSP was the runner-up in 2017 and won the seat in 2022, highlighting the party's growing influence in the region.
A senior BJP functionary, however, said the party gave a fair chance to the SBSP by allowing it to contest the Ghosi Lok Sabha seat in 2024 which includes the Mau Sadar segment. The move, however, did not yield the desired results as Congress-backed SP candidate Rajeev Rai defeated Rajbhar's son Arvind by a significant margin of over 1.6 lakh votes.
Experts said the BJP wants to capitalise on Mukhtar Ansari family's legal troubles besides highlighting the clean governance of the Yogi govt.
Analysts say the disqualification of Abbas Ansari and Mukhtar's absence have significantly weakened the family's political influence in the seat. At present, Mukhtar's brother, Afzal Ansari, is Ghazipur MP on an SP ticket while his elder brother Sibghatullah's son Suhaib Ansari is MLA from Mohamadabad. However, Afzal Ansari too faces multiple criminal cases, further jeopardising the family's political future.

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