The people of Etawah believe that the Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party wouldn’t have existed had this gateway to the Chambal region not been there. However, they also claim that SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav, who emerged as the biggest leader of the region in the 1990s, strategically finished its composite legacy to build his own.
Allan Octavian Hume, who was the collector of Etawah from 1854 to 1870 and began his social service here by opening 366 elementary schools and the Central English School, founded the Indian National Congress in Bombay in 1885 along with Dadabhai Naoroji and Dinshaw Edulji Wacha.
“Hume worked towards empowering Indians. But Mulayam wanted only his and his family's names to be known here. As a result, there are Mulayam statues and halls named after him on the premises of the buildings built by the British here. However, Mulayam tolerated the RSS and the BJP to some extent,” said Ranveer Gupta, a student of Chaudhary Charan Singh Post Graduate College.
Kanshi Ram founded the BSP in 1984 but he tasted electoral success for the first time by winning the Etawah parliamentary seat in 1991 with the support of Mulayam, who had already served as the chief minister of the Janata Dal government in Uttar Pradesh between 1989 and 1991.
Mulayam founded the SP in 1992 and forged an electoral alliance with the BSP in the 1993 Assembly elections. The SP also flourished thereafter.
With time, Mulayam weakened both the Congress and the BSP but never resisted the BJP, which continued to play a role in Etawah’s politics.
“He always helped the BJP and harmed the Congress and the BSP because he had become chief minister for the first time in 1989 with the Hindutva party’s support. In 2003, Kesari Nath Tripathi, Assembly Speaker and BJP leader, went out of his way to legitimise a faction of the BSP that merged with the SP, making it possible for Mulayam to become chief minister for the third time," said Laeeq Ahmed, a wealthy farmer of Etawah.
"Although the SP contested in 1993 in alliance with the BSP and later formed the government the same year with the support of the Congress, Mulayam did everything thereafter to erase these two parties and made the job of the BJP easy by publicising that the Muslims were united under him. In reaction, the Hindus began consolidating behind the BJP. Akhilesh knows how to continue his father’s legacy,” Ahmed added.
Veteran Congress leader Jameel Qureshi echoed Ahmed.
Maulana Shahabuddin Razvi, a Barelvi cleric, told The Telegraph: “Muslims used to support the Congress and also, to a limited extent, the BSP. Mulayam not only finished the Congress and the BSP in his stronghold but also the Muslims politically. Today, the Muslims are so helpless that they don’t see an option beyond the SP, which didn’t give anything to mosques or madrasas when Akhilesh was chief minister from 2012 to 2017.... The SP allied with the Muslims and weakened them.”
There are five Assembly segments in the Etawah parliamentary constituency spread across Etawah, Auraiya and Kanpur Rural districts. Of the five, the BJP won Etawah and Sikandra in the last Assembly polls, while the SP bagged the remaining three. The Etawah parliamentary seat is also with the SP.
“Etawah and Sikandra are with the BJP and the remaining three are with the SP. These seats will remain with the BJP or the SP. There is no hope for the Congress or the BSP for many years here,” said a local RSS leader on condition of anonymity.
The Jaswantnagar Assembly seat, which falls in Etawah district but is part of the Mainpuri Lok Sabha segment, was with Mulayam since 1967 and his younger brother Shivpal Yadav took over in 1996.
“Mulayam planned so meticulously that he became the biggest political family in the country. His principle was to be unprincipled. Akhilesh will never be able to match his father’s cunning,” said Ashok Yadav, former minister of tourism who is currently with the Rashtriya Lok Dal.
He added: “Mulayam had run away from Mainpuri in fear that someone who was 25 years younger would defeat him. He fielded Balram Yadav in his place and managed the support of many leaders of other parties. As a result, I lost by around 10,000 votes. Later, Mulayam built the party and family in such a manner that they could have a permanent hold over the politics of UP.”
Akhilesh, the SP president, is the MP of Kannauj. His wife Dimple Yadav and cousins Aditya Yadav, Akshay Yadav and Dharmendra Yadav are MPs from Mainpuri, Badaun, Firozabad and Azamgarh. His uncles Ram Gopal Yadav and Shivpal Yadav are Rajya Sabha member and MLA, respectively. Tej Pratap Yadav, Akhilesh’s nephew, is the Karhal MLA and son-in-law of RJD patriarch and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad. Abhishek Anshul Yadav, another of Akhilesh’s cousins, is the chairman of the Etawah District Council. Akhilesh’s aunt Premlata Yadav is former district council chairperson.
Akhilesh’s other relatives — Mridula Yadav, Ajant Singh Yadav, Sarla Yadav and Anurag Yadav — are also active in politics and have often been elected to one or the other post.
Arun Kumar Gupta, the BJP's Etawah president, skirted this newspaper's question on the dominance of Mulayam’s family and their alleged tacit understanding with the BJP.
“We have held two Vidhan Sabha seats each in Etawah and the adjoining Firozabad and Mainpuri Lok Sabha segments. So, it is wrong that we don’t challenge them,” he said.
Bachaspati Dwivedi, a Congress spokesperson hailing from Etawah, said an alliance with the SP was a bad idea and that party supporters were against any such tie-up.