The year-long
farmer’s protest in and around New Delhi and its root causes have been a predominant
theme for the Thana Bhawan constituency, which heads to polls in the first of
the seven-phased elections in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday.

Thana
Bhawan, which is one of the three constituencies in the Shamli district, is
home to the state’s Cane Development Minister and two-time BJP MLA Suresh Rana.
And farmers from the region complain that the 51-year-old has not done enough
to help them, alleging that pending dues for sugarcane crops have not been
cleared for months.

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They say
that Rana could have done more to get dues cleared by mills like Bajaj sugar
mill, one of the biggest in western UP and a key point of sugarcane sale in the
district.

Some even make
it clear that their support for Rana is a necessity to keep the BJP and Chief
Minister Yogi Adityanath in power. One of the key moves by the BJP government
to win the support of the Rajputs of the region was to remove the word Gurjar
from a plaque on the Mihir Bhoj statue in Dadri – which led to protests by the
Gurjar community.

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However, the
discontent among the people surrounding Rana does not present a straightforward
advantage to the Samajwadi Party. That is in part due to the party’s alliance
with the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and the tensions arising between workers and
supports of the two parties in the state.

The SP-RLD
combine has fielded RLD leader Ashraf Ali from the seat, while SP supporters were
expecting their choice Sher Singh Rana to be given the ticket. The fallout from
the decision led to people urging Sher Singh to contest the elections as an
independent.

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While Thana
Bhawan has a mixed caste population, the Rajput community – to which both
Suresh Rana and Sher Shah Rana belong – enjoys a significant political sway in
the constituency.

In the 2017
polls, Suresh Rana had defeated BSP candidate Abdul Waris Khan by nearly 50,000
votes. It was a much closer affair in 2012, when he edged RLD nominee Ashraf
Ali by just 265 votes, with a rematch between these two key contestants a much-awaited
affair – particularly for the bereaved sugarcane farmers of Thana Bhawan.

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Thana Bhawan,
is among the 58 constituencies in 11 districts that will go to polls in the
first phase on Thursday. Results will be declared on March 10.