“What did Mayawati do for her caste? At least Mulayam Singh provided jobs to his people! She only built elephants,” says Bhimsen, a grocer in the Kutlupur locality of Agra.
While he is spiteful of Ms. Mayawati, Mr. Bhimsen, who belongs to the Kori (Dalit) caste, is enamoured of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and praises him for the Balakot air strike and for doing in “five years, what was not achieved in 70”.
But there is also a communal factor to his choice.
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“The Congress made Muslims sit on its head, Modi
A few kilometres away at Phulwali Gali, close to a communally sensitive area, Rakesh Kumar, also a Dalit (Nai), runs a men’s grooming parlour. So who is in contest? BSP vs BJP? “Only Modi! No contest. Bua-Bhatija (aunt and nephew) would have been squabbling today but due to their fear of Modi, they came together to oust him,” Mr. Kumar speaks of BSP chief Mayawati and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav.
Moving around Agra, one of U.P.’s 17 reserved seats, one finds a distinct pattern of non-Jatav Dalits rallying behind the BJP, while at the same time being critical of Ms. Mayawati.
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Reflective of the internal fractures within the Dalit community in U.P., the BSP has never won Agra, despite the constituency being home to more than 3 lakh Jatavs — Mayawati’s caste and the core of the party’s support base. The Jatavs represent an overwhelming 56% of the State’s Dalits.
And it is this polarisation of the non-Jatav voters, along with the large Bania business community, that the BJP is relying on to retain the seat for the third time in a row. However, the SP-BSP-RLD alliance has changed the arithmetic, with the likely consolidation of the over 3 lakh Muslim voters.
Agra also has a substantial number of Yadavs in two segments — Jalesar and Etmadpur — making it the perfect test case for traditional vote banks of the alliance and the BJP.
Kartar Singh Bharti, a Jatav and senior advocate who lost the 2012 mayoral polls by a thin margin, believes this is the year the elephant (the BSP’s symbol) will conquer Agra. Seated in the gallery of his hotel in the Chippitola area near the Agra Fort, he says his community will vote passionately this time to make Ms. Mayawati the Prime Minister. But he is bothered by the trend among the non-Jatav Dalits. “These castes could not connect to the Ambedkarite movement and hence can be pulled in by the BJP,” Mr. Bharti says. The prominent Dalit castes in Agra are Khatik, Dhobi, Valmiki, Kori and Dhanuk.
The contest here is between the BSP’s Manoj Soni and State Minister S.P.S. Baghel of the BJP. Both are battling an ‘outsider’ tag. Mr. Soni is a Jatav businessman from Noida who contested unsuccessfully from Hathras in 2014, while Mr. Baghel, a three-time MP from Jalesar with stints in both the SP and BSP, is battling a controversy over his SC identity.
What works in Mr. Baghel’s favour is that he has a personal rapport across parties and communities, including with the Muslims.
In Agra, Dalits and Muslims live in close proximity and are connected by the city’s famed shoe industry. Bharat Singh, president of the Juta Dastkar Federation, says demonetisation has shattered the economy and there is anger among his community towards the BJP.
“People are now moving to other work,” says Mr. Singh, himself a Jatav. “There used to be 7,000 units here. Now barely 1,000 are making shoes.”
The Muslims in the city said there have been attempts to polarise the atmosphere: incidents of right-wing activists forcibly performing puja at the Taj Mahal or raising pro-Pakistan slogans at the monument.
“But people understand such tactics now,” says Irfan Ahmed, a Muslim activist in Mantolla. Harish Chandra Sharma, a builder, is one of the few upper caste voters critical of Mr. Modi. He says he would vote for the BSP to help the Congress come to power by reducing the BJP’s numbers.