The Bharatiya Janata Party was defeated from the constituency synonomyous with the Ram Temple as it has continuously done politics in the name of Lord Ram, said Awadhesh Prasad, the newly elected MP from Faizabad, which encompasses the temple town of Ayodhya. The Samajwadi Party leader described himself and his party as the real followers of Lord Ram.
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“We are the real Ram bhakts; they did politics in the name of Ram for attaining power. It is a big achievement for me to emerge victorious from this historic religious centre. I am thankful to the respected voters of Ayodhya,” he said, speaking in the temple town on Thursday.
Mr. Prasad, a veteran legislator who hails from the Scheduled Caste (SC) Pasi community, wrested the prestigious seat from the BJP despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself doing a roadshow for the ruling party’s nominee. “My victory is unprecedented as I won from this general seat and I am very much thankful to the party chief Akhilesh Yadav for giving the opportunity,” he added.
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Veteran Pasi leader
Mr. Prasad defeated the sitting BJP MP Lallu Singh by 54,567 votes, with the SP candidate polling 5,54,289 votes against Mr. Singh’s 4,99,722. He was one of five victorious SP candidates from the Pasi community in an election where the party SP won 37 seats, its best ever performance in a parliamentary poll. The Pasi community has a sizeable presence in central and eastern Uttar Pradesh.
Mr. Prasad, 79, currently a general secretary of the SP, has five decades of experience in politics. He was closely involved in the anti-Emergency movement and served as the Ayodhya district co-convenor for the movement. A nine-time MLA, the veteran leader represented the Sohawal assembly segment seven times between 1977 and 2007, as a candidate of various socialist parties, including the Janata Party, Lok Dal, and Janata Dal in the 1970s and 1980s. He was a founding member of the SP in 1992 and has remained committed to the party ever since.
He was elected from the erstwhile Sohawal (Scheduled Caste) reserved constituency in the 1977, 1985, 1989, 1993, 1996, 2002, and 2007 Vidhan Sabha polls, and won the Milkipur (Scheduled Caste) reserved constituency in the 2012 and 2022 Assembly polls, though he lost the seat in 2017.
Mr. Prasad has served as a State Cabinet Minister in various U.P. governments, including the Janata Party government led by Ram Naresh Yadav and Babu Banarasi Das in the 1970s and in the SP government led by Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav.