BJP candidate Brijesh has won from Deoband seat of Uttar Pradesh in the assembly elections of 2022. He has defeated Kartikey Rana of the Samajwadi Party by a margin of 7104 votes. Brijesh Singh got 93890 votes while Kartikey Rana could get 86786 votes. Choudhary Rajendra Singh of the Bahujan Samaj Party remained on the third spot with 52732 votes.
AIMIM’s much-hyped candidate Umair Madani, who is related to the chief of the Darul Uloom Deoband, has got only 3501 votes. Congress’ Rahat Khalil has got just 1096 votes.
Winning candidate Brijesh Singh of BJP got 38% per cent voters while Kartikeya Rana of SP secured 35% per cent of votes.
The Deoband numbers tell the story. The city has a 71% population of Muslims, but overall, the constituency has a 40% Muslim population. Deoband is in the Saharanpur district and it is known for Darul Uloom Deoband, one of India’s most influential Islamic seminaries. Deobandi school of Islamic doctrine is one of the major Sunni cults many radical Islamic organisations around the world follow the Deobandi school of thought.
Samajwadi Party’s election strategies have been conventionally revolving around consolidating the Muslim votes. BJP on the other hand fielded Brijesh Singh once again after he had secured a win in 2017 from the Deoband assembly seat. After winning the 2017 elections, Brijesh Singh had said that Deoband will be renamed as Devvrind only if there is a BJP government in the state.
A month before this election, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath had laid the foundation stone of the ATS training centre at Deoband. It is notable that the exit polls by all organisations had predicted BJP returning to power in Uttar Pradesh.
