2024 Lok Sabha polls: Will INDIA bloc be able to stop Kaushal Kishore’s winning streak in Mohanlalganj?
Riding the Modi wave, Kaushal Kishore turned Mohanlalganj into an impregnable fortress for the Bharatiya Janata Party and scored two consecutive wins in the last two Lok Sabha polls.
Having defeated the SP-BSP “mahagathbandhan” in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, it remains to be seen whether Union minister of state Kaushal Kishore will be able to continue the winning streak against the INDIA bloc candidate in the parliamentary election in Mohanalganj (reserved constituency) this time.
Riding the Modi wave, Kaushal Kishore turned Mohanlalganj into an impregnable fortress for the Bharatiya Janata Party and scored two consecutive wins in the last two Lok Sabha polls.
In 2019, Kaushal Kishore had overcome the challenge posed by the much talked about SP-BSP alliance. Five years ago, he won the election by a considerable margin of 90,204 votes, securing 6,29,999 votes (49.58%) of the total votes polled. CL Verma, the SP-BSP alliance candidate, secured 42.48% votes by bagging 5,39,795 votes.
In 2024, the scenario has changed with the Samajwadi Party and the Congress being part of the INDIA bloc under which the Mohanlalganj constituency has gone to the Samajwadi Party whose candidate RK Chaudhary will challenge Kaushal Kishore.
A veteran politician, Chaudhary was a dedicated party cadre groomed by BSP founder Kashi Ram. In 2014, Chaudhary stood second as a BSP candidate.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, Chaudhary was a Congress candidate and could manage only 60,069 votes, forfeiting even his deposit.
BSP candidate CL Verma was the main challenger to Kaushal Kishore in 2019. The BSP is yet to declare its candidate from Mohanlalganj this time.
According to political observers, defeating Kishore will not be easy even for the INDIA candidate in this election.
Kishore’s clout in the region could be gauged by the fact that he managed to secure victory for his wife Jai Devi from the Maliahabad seat in both the 2017 and 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls as a BJP candidate. Kishore’s brother-in-law Amresh Kumar won the Mohanlalganj assembly seat in 2022 as a BJP candidate.
As the Pasi community has a dominant status in Mohanlalganj reserved parliamentary constituency, all parties field Pasi candidates here.
Kaushal Kishore’s status as Pasi face of the BJP in the state got cemented when the BJP inducted him into the Union council of ministers months ahead of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
After Jatav, Pasis are the second largest Dalit community in the state having considerable presence in several areas in Central parts of the state.
Kaushal Kishore had played a key role in bringing the Pasi community into the BJP fold in 2022 assembly polls.
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