Azad, Antony, Geetha—6 candidates to watch in 2024. Their win can reshape politics in states

Azad, Antony, Geetha—6 candidates to watch in 2024. Their win can reshape politics in states

The 2024 general election is all about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Opposition leaders won’t say why they deserve to be elected to power. They are virtually telling the voters that if they re-elect Modi, they will be responsible for the destruction of the Constitution and democracy.

Beyond PM Modi though, there are many candidates in the electoral fray whose victory or loss may reshape politics in several states with an obvious bearing on national politics. I have identified six of them, although there are many others. They are fighting mini-battles in distant corners of the country.

Chandra Shekhar Azad (Nagina)

The 37-year-old Bhim Army founder contesting from Nagina in Uttar Pradesh is the sole candidate of his Azad Samaj Party (ASP) in the 2024 polls.

He has had many false starts in his political career even though there is near unanimity about his potential at a time when there is almost a vacuum in Dalit politics in India. Self-styled leaders of the Scheduled Castes (SCs) like Mayawati, Prakash Ambedkar, Ramdas Athawale, Jitan Ram Manjhi, and Thol. Thirumavalavan, among others (fingers crossed about Chirag Paswan) are fast losing or have already lost their support base. Most of these self-proclaimed Dalit parties have become mere pressure groups. The biggest of them, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), won just 1 seat in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh assembly in 2022, with a vote share of barely 13 per cent.

Unlike the above-mentioned leaders, Azad is a streetfighter who has caught the fancy of Dalit youth in many states. His biggest drawback has been that he is still not being seen as someone with a steady vote bank. Neither the Congress nor the Samajwadi Party (SP) warmed up to his overtures for an alliance in this election. In the 2022 assembly election, he contested against CM Yogi Adityanath in Gorakhpur but ended at the fourth position. The silver lining for him was that he got 7,640 votes, just 383 less than what the BSP candidate got.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Azad has made enough splash in Nagina for Mayawati to send her nephew, Akash Anand, to the reserved constituency to target her putative challenger in the Dalit electoral space.

If Azad manages to enter the Lok Sabha this time, it would herald the arrival of a new Dalit face who can potentially redefine Dalit politics. But if he loses in this election, too, the leadership vacuum among Dalits would expedite their march toward the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the absence of a more eager suitor.

Anil Antony (Pathanamthitta)   

Son of Congressman AK Antony, Anil may not yet look like a person who can impact Kerala politics. Suresh Gopi in Thrissur is the BJP’s best bet in Kerala, followed by Rajeev Chandrasekhar in Thiruvananthapuram. But it’s not about Jr Antony’s individual victory or loss. He is the face of the BJP’s fresh social engineering attempt. Gopi, an actor, has his own fan following, even among a section of Christians and Muslims. If he wins, it will be about his popularity as a film star, not about the BJP’s organic growth. Similarly, if Chandrasekhar wins in Thiruvananthapuram, it will reflect how the BJP has finally realised its potential in a constituency where it made inroads over decades without tasting success.

As it is, the BJP has realised that for it to become a big political force in Kerala, it has to have the support of either the Christians or the Muslims—both together constituting 46 per cent of the population. It has, therefore, been wooing the Christians. Given PM Modi’s popularity and growing public desire for a third alternative in Kerala, 2024 is the party’s best hope to emerge as a third alternative in an otherwise bipolar polity—that is, if it can build on the purported divisions between the Christians and the Muslims. That’s what makes Anil Antony so important in this election.

Zafar Iqbal Manhas (Anantnag-Rajouri)

The Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party candidate from Anantnag-Rajouri is crucial to the BJP’s long-term political strategy in the state. The addition of Rajouri and Poonch from the Jammu region to Anantnag in 2022 delimitation exercise made the BJP a potential player in this constituency, especially after the Centre gave Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to the Pahari community. It upset the Gujjar-Bakarwal tribes. The Election Commission of India’s (ECI) decision to postpone the election in this constituency—from May 7 to 25—is, therefore, viewed with suspicion by the opposition parties.

Gujjar-Bakarwals start their seasonal migration in the first week of April. While the BJP hasn’t fielded its candidate in Anantnag-Rajouri, it has unsaid allies in the fray in the form of Altaf Bukhari’s Apni Party and ex-CM Ghulam Nabi Azad’s Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP). While the Apni Party has put up a Pahari candidate, the DPAP is likely to eat into Kashmiri votes that would otherwise go to the National Conference or the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Poll victory of a candidate from a friendly party would open the door for the BJP into the Kashmir Valley.

Geetha Shivarajkumar (Shivamogga)

The Congress candidate is crucial to the political future of former Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa. His son, BY Raghvendra, is the sitting BJP MP here. Queering the pitch for Yediyurappa is former deputy CM KS Eshwarappa who has entered the fray for a sort of ‘revenge contest’. Eshwarappa holds BSY responsible for the denial of the BJP ticket to his son from Haveri. A possible split in BJP votes is likely to help the Congress candidate, Geetha Shivarajkumar, daughter of former CM S Bangarappa and wife of actor Shivraj Kumar.

PM Modi has given a free hand to BSY in the 2024 Lok Sabha election—from picking candidates to formulating the party’s electoral strategy—inviting flak in the process for promoting dynastic politics. BSY’s second son, Vijayendra, is the state BJP chief. BSY is walking on the thin ice, though. He doesn’t get along with Modi-Shah, but the latter are indulging him today given the high stakes in the Lok Sabha election in Karnataka. More than the results of any other seat, Shivamogga holds the key to BSY’s future standing in the BJP. If Geetha defeats BSY’s son in Shivamogga, that’s likely to seal the fate of the 81-year-old leader.

Angomcha Bimol Akoijam (Inner Manipur)

The Congress candidate, an associate professor at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), contested from a constituency that covers the Meitei-dominated areas in the trouble-torn state.

State minister Basanta Kumar Singh is the BJP candidate. Inner Manipur results would be crucial to CM Biren Singh, who has got the backing of the BJP high command despite his failures. He enjoys the support of Meiteis and Arambai Tenggol, a militia-like group of Meiteis that rules the roost in Imphal, with the state administration looking the other way. If the Congress wins the Meitei-dominated constituency, Biren Singh may find the going tough. In the BJP, you can get away with anything only as long as you deliver in elections. But if the Congress loses, the high command may see more reason to continue with Biren Singh. It’s anybody’s guess what will happen to Manipur then.

K Annamalai (Coimbatore)

You may be wondering why I have come to Annamalai in the end. Well, that’s because the people across the country watch him so closely that I don’t have to explain much. I have chosen Coimbatore, not Kanyakumari, because the latter already has a Hindutva votebank and the BJP won the seat as recently as in 2014. The BJP won in Coimbatore in 1998 and 1999, but those victories were under the shadow of communal riots and serial blasts. The BJP never won the Coimbatore seat after that. That’s why if Annamalai wins, it may signal the advent of a new era in state politics. It would mean the BJP’s success in shedding its Hindi-Hindu tag in Tamil Nadu. His victory will not only announce the arrival of a new leader on Tamil soil but also establish the BJP as the third alternative in the run-up to the assembly election in 2026. A Gounder at the helm of the third force would also enable the BJP to expand its footprints in the western region at the cost of E K Palaniswami’s All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). But if even Annamalai fails to end the two-and-a-half-decades-long drought for the BJP in Coimbatore, even under PM Modi’s leadership, it will be a big setback to its dream of expansion in the Dravidian land.

DK Singh is Political Editor at ThePrint. He tweets @dksingh73. Views are personal.

(Edited by Humra Laeeq)