Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and two-term Member of Parliament (MP) Sanjeev Balyan has accused the party’s former Sardhana MLA Sangeet Som of undermining his re-election bid by supporting the rival Samajwadi Party (SP). Balyan, a former union minister, lost the 2024 general elections from Muzaffarnagar to SP leader Harendra Singh Malik by about 25,000 votes. The Sardhana assembly seat, previously represented by Som, falls under the Muzaffarnagar Lok Sabha constituency.

“He (Sangeet Som) supported the SP candidate in the election. The atmosphere in western UP was spoiled through panchayats by the Rajput community, and he facilitated these panchayats. That divided the votes. That affected the results in Kairana and Saharanpur as well,” Balyan was quoted as saying in a national daily.

Balyan faced boycott calls from certain sections of the Rajput community who were unhappy about the alleged Jat dominance in the BJP and the subsequent sidelining of Rajputs in ticket distribution. Congress party leader Imran Masood won the Saharanpur constituency, while SP candidate Iqra Choudhary secured the Kairana seat. The BJP won 10 seats, and its ally, the RLD, bagged two out of the 19 Lok Sabha seats in western UP in the recently concluded election. In 2019, the BJP had won 12 of these seats. The RLD had contested the 2019 elections as an ally of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Samajwadi Party.

The 2024 Lok Sabha elections saw a close fight between the BJP and the INDIA bloc in Uttar Pradesh, with the opposition ultimately winning 43 while the BJP-led NDA could only win 36 seats. In the 2019 general elections, the BJP alone had won 62 of the 80 seats from Uttar Pradesh.

Balyan, a Jat, listed three key factors responsible for his defeat: the consolidation of Muslim votes behind the opposition, the division among Hindus, and low voter turnout.

The seven-phase Lok Sabha elections 2024 were held from April 19 to June 1, with results announced on June 4. The BJP-led NDA won 294 seats, while the INDIA bloc secured 237 seats with the help of three independents. Som, a Rajput, dismissed Balyan’s allegations, stating that Balyan had lost support among BJP workers because he had not worked for the party in the last 10 years.

Regarding the allegation of facilitating panchayats, Som said he had instead conducted damage-control exercises, convincing people and securing votes from the Rajput community for the party.