In 1985, there was an interesting by-election contest on the Bijnor Lok Sabha seat of Uttar Pradesh between Meira Kumar of Congress, Ram Vilas Paswan of Janata Dal and Mayawati of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Meira Kumar had won in this but Ram Vilas Paswan was also well liked by the people of Bijnor. This was the first time that Congress leader Meira Kumar entered electoral politics and faced two big Dalit leaders, Ram Vilas Paswan and Mayawati. Coming from a Dalit family, Meira Kumar accepted the challenge and proved her candidacy against her Scheduled Caste (SC) opponents.
Mulayam Singh and Sharad Yadav were camping in Bijnor.
By-election was held in 1985 on the Bijnor Lok Sabha seat, which fell vacant after the death of Girdhari Lal of Congress. Babu Jagjivan Ram’s daughter Meira Kumar contested her first election from Congress. His competition was against Ram Vilas Paswan, who was in Lok Dal at that time. Due to not being a recognized party, despite being a BSP candidate, Mayawati was contesting as an independent candidate. It is said that many leaders including Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sharad Yadav were camping in Bijnor for several days to campaign in the elections.
Ram Vilas Paswan shone despite the defeat
In this exciting election, the Dalit leader of Congress defeated Lok Dal candidate Ram Vilas Paswan by a margin of 5,339 votes. BSP supremo Mayawati contested the elections as an independent candidate and stood third. Meira Kumar got a total of 1,28,086 votes. Whereas, Ram Vilas Paswan got 1,22,747 votes while Mayawati got 61,504 votes. Despite the defeat, it was due to the popularity of Ram Vilas Paswan that the margin of defeat was only about 5 thousand votes.
After the Lok Sabha elections, Meira Kumar was appointed as a member of the Consultative Committee of the Ministry of External Affairs in 1986. Meira Kumar is the daughter of former Deputy Prime Minister and prominent Scheduled Caste leader Jagjivan Ram.
Voting took place in Bijnor on 19 April
In 2024, the main contest in Bijnor is between Deepak Saini of Samajwadi Party (SP), Chandan Chauhan of Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and Chaudhary Vijendra Singh of BSP. Voting in the first phase has concluded in Bijnor on April 19.
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