Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Chandrashekhar Azad – The Dalit face who played a role in upending BJP in UP

Bhim Army chief and independent candidate Chandrashekhar Azad secured victory in the Nagina Lok Sabha constituency in Uttar Pradesh in the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections. This triumph by a Dalit leader prompted Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav to celebrate, hailing it as "a victory for the Pichada (oppressed), Dalit, and Alpsankhyak (Minorities)." In Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party claimed 37 Lok Sabha seats, the Congress secured 6, while Chandrashekhar Azad's Aazad Samaj Party clinched one seat.

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Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party has traditionally held the crown of Dalit representation in Uttar Pradesh. However, the 2024 Lok Sabha Election results on Tuesday revealed that Chandrashekhar Azad secured 51.19% of the votes in the west UP seat, which is predominantly populated by Muslims and Dalits. In contrast, the BSP was positioned fourth with a mere 1.33% vote share.

Chandrashekhar Azad emerged victorious from Nagina, a Scheduled Caste-reserved constituency in western UP, securing a margin of over 1.51 lakh votes. Azad defeated Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Om Kumar, whose vote share plummeted to 36%.

The BSP candidate, Surendra Pal Singh, garnered only 1.33% of the votes, a figure considerably lower than the Samajwadi Party's (SP's) Manoj Kumar, who secured a vote share of 10.22%. In the 2019 election, the BSP's Girish Chandra won, defeating the BJP's Yashwant Singh by a margin of 1.66 lakh votes.

"The BSP has no member in the Lok Sabha now. Azad will raise the issues of Dalits and Muslims in the House. That will help him rise as the leader of Dalits and certainly emerge as an alternative to Mayawati. That will further weaken the BSP," Indian Express quoted a leader of the Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) or ASP as saying.

At the age of 36, Chandrashekhar Azad, a law graduate, founded the Bhim Army in 2015 to advocate for the progress of Dalits and other marginalized communities. In 2017, Azad was arrested by the government led by BJP leader and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who imposed the controversial National Security Act (NSA) against him.

Azad was released after the Act was revoked in 2018. 

Nagina Lok Sabha constituency – Understanding the voter-base

In the Nagina Lok Sabha constituency, Dalits, mostly Jatavs (the BSP's main support base), comprise around 20% of the population, and Muslims account for about 40% of the total population. The remaining percentage includes Thakurs, Jats, Chauhan Rajputs, Tyagis, and Banias.

Why Azad's win is significant?

Chandrashekhar Azad remains the only Dalit leader from UP in the Lok Sabha now. BSP failed to win any seats in the 80-MP state. 

Before the elections, Azad had insisted on keeping the Nagina constituency to ASP, following which an alliance talk with Akhilesh Yadav's SP fell through. Azad then relentlessly conducted a door-to-door campaign, ostensibly securing both Dalit and Muslim votes. 

The victory is significant in its symbolism. In 1989, Mayawati had contested and won from the Bijnor constituency, which falls in Nagina following the 2008 delimitation.

Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha Election Result 2024

The BJP-led NDA suffered a jolt in Uttar Pradesh, where it won just 36 seats, compared to the INDIA bloc's 43 – a significant contribution to the opposition alliance's overall tally.

In the 2019 general elections, the ruling BJP won 62 seats—ally Apna Dal (S) got another two—out of the 80 in the country's most populous state.

Despite the BJP's emphasis on the Ayodhya Ram Mandir project, the saffron party lost the Faizabad constituency to the SP. Ayodhya falls within the Faizabad Lok Sabha constituency.