Caste-based parties scramble to woo UP’s Nishad community by laying claim to Phoolan Devi’s legacy

With the UP assembly polls due next year, two caste-based political parties are trying to lay claim to the legacy of late dacoit-turned politician Phoolan Devi.

Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aam Dal (Nishad) and Vikasshil Insaan Party (VIP) of Bihar, both allies of the BJP, are claiming to be ‘true representatives’ of the Nishad community.

Mukesh Sahani, a leader of VIP and a minister in Bihar, has declared that his party will install statues of Phoolan Devi in 18 districts and will contest 165 seats.

Sahani is eyeing the votes of the Nishad community who account for seven per cent of UP's electorate. The 18 districts where the party proposes to install Phoolan's statues have a sizable population of the community. These include Prayagraj, Firozabad, Ballia, Sant Kabir Nagar, Banda, Ayodhya, Sultanpur, Gorakhpur, Maharajganj, Auraiya, Lucknow, Unnao, Meerut, Mirzapur, Sant Ravidas Nagar, Muzaffarnagar, Varanasi and Jaunpur.

Interestingly, the VIP has alleged that the party’s posters and banners were torn off by the police in Varanasi on Sunday and its workers were prevented from gathering.

Sahani's political ambitions seem to have become a threat to UP’s Nishad Party headed by Sanjay Nishad. His son Praveen Nishad is BJP MP from Khalilabad.

The party is dominant in about 20 Lok Sabha constituencies and 60 Assembly segments in Uttar Pradesh.

Sanjay Nishad has been a Nishad politician in Uttar Pradesh for decades and has raised the issues of the community on numerous occasions. He is now said to be eying a ministerial seat with reports of Yogi Adityanath’s Cabinet expansion floating around.

If Mukesh Sahani makes inroads into Nishad votes in UP, he will be another option for the BJP in place of Sanjay Nishad. This may benefit the BJP as it will not be under as much pressure from Sanjay Nishad as it is at this time.

Meanwhile, these developments have rattled the Samajwadi Party (SP) because it was SP which ensured the release of Phoolan Devi from jail in 1994 and she was elected to Lok Sabha twice as a SP candidate. A SP leader said that his party has always aimed to provide political representation to Nishad community in the party organisation, government, Parliament and Vidhan Sabha. Phoolan Devi, Vishambhar Prasad Nishad, Rajpal Kashyap are some examples, he said.

Phoolan Devi was jailed in 1981 after being held guilty for the massacre of members of Thakur community in Behmai village of Kanpur Dehat. The then SP supremo Maulayam Singh Yadav ensured her release in 1994.

She was elected twice to Lok Sabha from Bhadohi seat as SP candidate. She was assassinated in 2001 by assailants who said they wanted to avenge the deaths of the people in Behmai village.