Is It Proper For An Ex-Governor To Contest An Assembly Election?

Agra, January 17 (TNA) Questions are doing rounds here on the propriety of an ex-governor contesting an assembly election. Baby Rani Maurya, a former mayor of Agra, opted to resign from governorship of Uttarakhand, to enter active politics. If she romps home at the hustings next month, she would most likely get a cabinet post in the Yogi government.

She is the Dalit face of the BJP, and is fairly popular in Agra. The party has fielded her from Agra rural seat, to replace Hemlata Diwakar. Meanwhile, for the nine assembly seats in Agra district the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party has dropped five sitting MLAs.

The strong Agarwal community of Agra has criticised the BJP for not giving a single seat to the Agarwals whose population is estimated to be around three lakhs in the district. At a meeting Saturday afternoonin a hotel half a dozen organisations representing the community announced boycott and oppose the BJP in the coming elections.

Their ire is particularly directed against sitting MLA Purushottam Khandelwal who has been given the ticket. Khandelwals constitute a small percentage of Agra’s population. Agra north is considered a bastion of the Agarwal community. Choudhary Babu Lal, a strong Jaat leader has replaced Choudhary Uday Bhan Singh from Fatehpur Sikri, while a recent defector Dharam Pal Singh replaces Ram Pratap Singh Chauhan, from Etmadpur.

The Bhartiya Janata Party, as expected, has not bothered to appease the Dalits or the Muslims. The Bahujan Samaj Party yesterday announced its candidates for the nine seats of Agra, called the Dalit capital of north India. The BJP won all the nine seats in 2017. Political pundits guesstimate a loss of at least two seats this time, but the BJP election machine is all buoyed up and hopes to steamroll all opposition as the campaign picks up momentum.

The opposition has questioned BJP on its failure to clean up the Yamuna and build a barrage downstream of the Taj Mahal. Samajwadi Party leaders say the BJP has failed to fulfill its promise of a High Court bench in Agra, as per the recommendation of the Jaswant Singh Commission.

For the BJP, the chief worry is a low turn out of its voters due to the Covid-19 pandemic.