From Nagina To Lucknow: Can Chandrashekhar Azad Become UP's New Dalit Face?

Four years after founding the Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram), Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad delivered its biggest result yet: a commanding win from the Nagina Lok Sabha constituency in 2024, by a margin of roughly 1.51 lakh votes, contesting entirely on his own. It was a symbolically loaded victory — Nagina was carved out of Bijnor, the same seat from which Mayawati won her first Parliamentary election 35 years earlier — and it has made Azad one of the most closely watched figures heading into the 2027 Assembly election.

Bhim Army Roots

Azad's political rise began with the Bhim Army, an organisation focused on Dalit rights and education that he founded years before entering electoral politics. The Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram), formed in 2020 and named for the BSP's founder, has positioned itself as a fresh vehicle for Ambedkarite politics, drawing support that spans Dalit, Muslim and, in parts of western UP, Jat communities.

The 'Janta Alliance' Doctrine

Unlike most of Uttar Pradesh's opposition landscape, Azad has resisted being neatly filed into either of the state's two broad camps. He has been categorical that there is "no question" of allying with the BJP, even hypothetically in exchange for the Chief Minister's post, describing himself as an ideological opponent of the party. At the same time, he has also kept the INDIA bloc at a distance, describing his own positioning in past campaigns as representing a "Janta Alliance" — a people's alliance distinct from both national blocs.

Warming Ties With The SP

That posture has shown signs of softening through 2026. Political observers in Uttar Pradesh point to a marked reduction in public criticism between the Azad Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party, with SP workers reportedly told to avoid attacking Chandrashekhar directly. Analysts see a potential SP-ASP understanding, particularly in western UP, as mutually beneficial: it would help the SP recover ground lost when the RLD exited its alliance, and would give the ASP a route to Assembly seats it would struggle to win entirely alone. Azad's own aides signalled after the Nagina win that the party was open to backing the INDIA bloc "if required."

An Uneasy Rivalry With The BSP

The relationship with Mayawati's BSP is more openly adversarial. Since the ASP's earliest days as a social organisation, its leaders say, the BSP has viewed it as a direct competitor for the same Dalit vote base — a rivalry that played out publicly during the 2024 Lok Sabha campaign in Nagina, when the BSP fielded Mayawati's nephew Akash Anand to campaign against Azad on the same turf where the party's founder first won public office.

Building For 2027

Organisationally, the Azad Samaj Party has moved to convert its Lok Sabha momentum into Assembly-level infrastructure. In July 2026, the party released a list of 45 constituency in-charges as part of its preparation for the 2027 election, an early step toward fielding a fuller slate of Assembly candidates than it has attempted before. Whether that organisational push, combined with a possible understanding with the SP, is enough to win the party its first Assembly seats will be one of the more closely watched subplots of the 2027 election.