A fear that Yogi Adityanath may not be allowed to succeed Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the BJP’s supreme leader appears to be driving Rajput anger against the party in Uttar Pradesh this election.

Rajput (Kshatriya) voters across several villages in Muzaffarnagar constituency, which voted on Friday, said they had either voted against the BJP or abstained.

The reason: A “plot by Modi and (Amit) Shah” to prevent Adityanath — a Rajput — from “becoming the rightful successor to Modi”.

This challenge from the Rajputs — a traditional BJP vote bank — comes at a time when apprehensions that a third Modi government might abolish reservations seem to have turned large sections of Dalit and tribal communities against the ruling party.

“This anger and campaign against the BJP is for the sake of Yogiji himself,” said Lokesh Thakur of Rardhna village, asked why the community continued to seethe despite Adityanath holding a rally near the village and promising to personally address all Rajput grievances.

“Agar Rajput saansad hi kam ho jaayenge, toh Yogiji kya dab-daba rah jaayega (If the number of Rajput MPs falls, what clout will Yogi command)?” Thakur said.

He underlined that the BJP had fielded just one Rajput candidate from the whole of western Uttar Pradesh, which accounts for 14 of the state’s 80 Lok Sabha seats.

Whispers have been getting louder in the BJP corridors that if Modi wins a “400-plus” majority, it could be used to sideline Adityanath, as has been done with Shivraj Singh Chouhan in Madhya Pradesh and Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan.

Many in the BJP believe that Adityanath’s popularity is second only to Modi’s and that this poses a challenge to Shah, the perceived No.2 in the current regime who regards himself as the “natural successor” to Modi.

Rajputs across a cluster of 24 villages dominated by the community, popularly called “Chaubisi”, alleged a “well-thought-out design” to lower the strength of Rajputs in Parliament.

“Why has only one Rajput been given a ticket (from western Uttar Pradesh)? Why was V.K. Singh dropped from Ghaziabad, where Rajputs have a strong presence?” said Ankur in Kurthal village.

Abhimanyu Som of Kheda said: “We have heard that Yogiji had demanded at least the two seats of Ghaziabad and Meerut for Rajputs, but this was denied by Amit Shah.”

This wave of Rajput fury against the BJP was triggered in Rajkot, Gujarat, when BJP candidate and Union minister Parshottam Rupala said that Kshatriya kings had “compromised” by breaking bread with, and marrying their daughters off to, foreign rulers. Since then, the anger has travelled to Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

Modi tried to douse the fire on Friday while addressing a rally in Amroha, western Uttar Pradesh, where he resorted to gratuitous praise of Adityanath. This appeared an effort to reassure the Rajputs that there was no threat to Adityanath’s leadership in Uttar Pradesh.

“In seven years, Yogiji has shown how governance is done, how law and order is handled, how development is done. Under Yogiji’s leadership, we will break the record of 2014 and 2019 and sweep (the Lok Sabha seats) in Uttar Pradesh,” Modi had said, drawing huge applause.

Despite this message from Modi on the morning of the day of voting in the first phase, the damage seemed to have been done, at least in Muzaffarnagar.

Many of the eight western Uttar Pradesh seats that went to the polls on Friday witnessed much lower turnouts compared with 2019.

In Muzaffarnagar, where the BJP’s two-term MP and incumbent Sanjeev Balyan is in the fray, the turnout fell nearly 9 per cent from 2019, according to Election Commission figures.

Polling was low — 35 per cent to just about 50 per cent — across the Rajput-dominated villages of Rardhna, Kheda, Kurthal, Rajpur Momin, Salawa and Jwala, which The Telegraph visited on Saturday.

“Out of 9,500 voters, only around 3,500 cast their votes. Many of these went to the ‘cycle’ (the Samajwadi Party symbol),” said Ankur Kumar of Rardhna, home village of district BJP president Shiv Kumar Rana.

“Some of the votes did go to the BJP but many like me, who do not vote for any party other than the BJP, stayed away.”