Lucknow: The legacy of Maharaja Suheldev has become the latest battleground in Uttar Pradesh, with the ruling and opposition parties engaging in a dramatic display of political one-upmanship to honour the 11th-century king.
Just hours after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath unveiled a grand 40-foot bronze statue of Maharaja Suheldev on a horse in Shravasti Tuesday, the Samajwadi Party (SP) made a bold announcement.
If voted back to power, would install a gold statue of the revered king in the heart of Lucknow, the Akhilesh Yadav-led party declared while celebrating ‘Vijay Diwas (Victory Day)’ in honour of Maharaja Suheldev in Lucknow.
The announcements are widely considered strategic bids to woo the influential Rajbhar community, which considers itself the direct descendants of Maharaja Suheldev and whose members hold significant sway in the electoral landscape of eastern Uttar Pradesh.
Political observers and analysts maintain that the BJP and SP moves are less about preserving history and more about votes, with both the ruling and opposition parties eyeing the crucial Rajbhar vote bank.
Besides unveiling the statue, Yogi earlier this year discontinued an annual fair at the Dargah of Salar Masud Ghazi in Bahraich. Ghazi is a controversial figure in the legend of Maharaja Suheldev. The story goes that Maharaja Suheldev defeated Ghazi, but later, one of the commanders of the slain Ghazi killed Suheldev.
This year, Yogi 2.0 also announced plans to rename the 1,000-year-old fair in Bahraich as ‘Vijayotsava’ to celebrate the victory of Suheldev, with mentions of Ghazi removed from the festivities, in a move to showcase absolute reverence for the Maharaja.
Professor Kavi Raj, who is with the political science department of Lucknow University, said, ”Rajbhars are considered an important OBC (Other Backwards Classes) group. Possibly, only three percent of the UP population, Rajbhars, however, claim to have an impact in over a dozen Lok Sabha seats of eastern UP such as Ghazipur, Azamgarh, Sant Kabir Nagar, Mau, and Varanasi.”
“They can play a key role in deciding the poll outcome. That said, we may now see a divide in their votes. The Rajbhar community has kept changing sides, with both SP and BJP getting their votes at different times,” he added.
Politics of Maharaja Suheldev’s descendants
Across at least 50 assembly seats at least, the Rajbhar community members are 12-18 percent of the voters. Currently, Yogi Adityanath already has two Rajbhar ministers, Anil Rajbhar and O.P. Rajbhar, in his cabinet.
According to functionaries in the UP BJP, the party started their outreach to the community even before the 2017 assembly elections, in 2016. The then-BJP president, Amit Shah, visited Bahraich to inaugurate a Suheldev statue and urged the Rajbhars to give the BJP a chance to bring development and restore the prestige of the former royal.
Later, Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief O.P. Rajbhar, considered one of the most significant leaders among the Rajbhar community, allied with the BJP for the 2017 assembly polls. When the BJP won the state polls, he became a minister in the Yogi Adityanath government. The SBSP had won four of the eight seats it contested.
However, the alliance split before the 2019 general elections because the BJP refused to give in to the SBSP’s demand for three seats. Since going their separate ways, the BJP has intensified its Rajbhar push, not only appointing Anil Rajbhar as a minister in the Yogi government but also putting him in charge of the Ballia and Bahraich districts, which have a sizable Rajbhar presence.
It has also made another community leader, Sakaldeep Rajbhar, a member of the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of Parliament.
O.P. Rajbhar switched and allied with the SP in the 2022 assembly polls, but ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, he again sealed an alliance with the BJP, with the party inducting him as a cabinet minister in March this year.
During the Lok Sabha elections, SP candidate Rajeev Rai defeated O.P. Rajbhar’s son, Arvind Rajbhar, in the Ghosi seat. After the victory, SP leaders claimed that a high number of Rajbhars voted for their party in the LS polls.
As the political narrative around Maharaja Suheldev intensifies, what remains unknown is whether symbolic gestures will translate into electoral gains or the community will again chart its course independently.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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