Kairana (UP): At Tabassum Hasan's election office in Shamli town, it is clear that she is much more than the Rashtriya Lok Dal nominee for the Kairana Lok Sabha bypoll.
Apart from the RLD flags, the flags of the Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party greet visitors there.
They bear witness to the fact that she is the joint candidate of the opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh, hoping to show that the defeat of the BJP in the Lok Sabha bye-elections in Gorakhpur and Phulpur in March was no fluke.
Barely a kilometre away is the office of the BJP candidate Mriganka Singh. It displays photographs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah.
The May 28 bye-election was called after Mriganka Singh's father Hukum Singh, a veteran politician from western UP, died in office.
Tabassum Hasan too is banking on family connections. Her Shamli office displays a portrait of her late husband Munnawar Hasan, who had represented Kairana both in the state assembly and the Lok Sabha.
The RLD office also has a picture of Jat leader Chaudhary Charan Singh, whose son Ajit Singh heads the party. But in western UP, even the BJP cannot afford to ignore his legacy. Its election brochures too carry his picture.
Invoking Charan Singh may be the only thing that the two women have in common.
Both have divergent views on the exodus of Hindu families from Kairana, a claim made by Mriganka Singh's father which became a major issue in the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election. The exodus of Hindu families from Kairana has stopped, she says.
Before the 2017 UP Assembly elections hundreds of Hindu families had fled from Kairana out of fear and harassment. However, after the BJP government under Yogi Adityanath was formed, the law and order scenario in the region has improved, she says.
But Tabassum Hasan, a former BSP MP who later joined the SP and then the RLD , says, There was no exodus from Kairana in the first place.
Both Hindus and Muslims have been living here in harmony for generations. The exodus issue was flagged only to divert attention from important issues, to add a communal colour to the elections and divide voters, she says.
The BJP candidate is also seen by many as a local , thanks to her father's standing in the area, though a 2017 election affidavit shows she is enrolled as a voter in Muradnagar assembly constituency. Her father's home is in Kairana.
Mriganka Singh, the daughter of our former MP Hukum Singh is certainly one among Kairana residents, while
Tabassum Beghum is comparatively not familiar with this place, says Ajeet Singh, a tea seller on the busy Kairana-Shamli road. PTI