UP Election 2022: Tiwari clan of Gorakhpur joins Akhilesh. Will it hurt Yogi?

The Bahubali of Purvanchal.

MLA from Gorakhpur's Chillupaar from 1985 to 2007.

A big Brahmin face from Eastern UP.

A sworn enemy of CM Yogi Adityanath.

We are talking about Hari Shankar Tiwari.

The Tiwari clan led by patriarch Hari Shankar Tiwari and his two sons - MLA Vinay Shankar Tiwari and former MP Bhishma Shankar Tiwari -- have switched to the Samajwadi Party ahead of the UP elections.

The move is definitely bad news for Mayawati's BSP, which the Tiwaris have deserted. But it can also spell trouble for chief minister Yogi Adityanath by disturbing the caste balance in Eastern UP.

The senior Tiwari began his reign of mafia raj in the 1980s. He is credited with heralding the mafia-politics nexus in Eastern UP. He won his first election from jail in 1985 as an independent. And never looked back since.

He is the man who marked the beginning of ‘mafia-rule’ in UP.

The Tiwari home in Gorakhpur, popular as Haata, is a power centre of sorts.

The Tiwaris had a long-running rivalry with another gangster Virendra Pratap Shahi, whose home was called Shakti Sadan.

The Haata Vs Shakti Sadan rivalry is a subject of folklore in Eastern UP. It was primarily a war between Brahmins and Thakurs. But with Shahi's murdered, the Tiwaris established themselves as the undisputed Bahubalis of Purvanchal.

The Shakti Sadan Vs Haata rivalry later turned into Mutt Vs Haata as the Gorakhpur peeth, now controlled by Yogi Adityanath, is a Thakur institution.

Such was his influence over politics that Hari Shankar Tiwari has been a minister in every UP government since the 90s. Be it Kalyan Singh, Rajnath Singh, Mulayam Singh or Mayawati, no CM could ignore the house of Tiwaris.

Throughout his political journey, Hari Shankar Tiwari lost only two elections, once in 2007, and then in 2012, after which he did not contest any election. However, his political influence is still intact as he established his family in the politics of the state. He regained control over his traditional seat of Chillupaar in 2017, though this time, it was his son Vinay Shankar Tiwari, who managed to become an MLA on BSP ticket from Yogi's stronghold despite the Modi wave.

Since the 80s, Tiwari senior has faced more than 2 dozen cases related to robbery, murder, kidnapping and obstructing government work. But not a single has been proven till date. An indication of his influence and muscle.

So how would the Tiwaris' latest move impact BSP and BJP in the upcoming polls?

For BSP, it's a big jolt as the party has been attempting to revive the Dalit-Brahmin alliance that gave it majority in 2007. And Tiwaris played a big part in getting upper castes closer to Behenji.

For BJP, the Tiwaris could disturb the caste applecart.

Yogi has, since the start, faced allegations of ignoring the Brahmins.

The narrative was established from the very start as Yogi ordered raid on Tiwari's Haata within weeks of coming to power.

The cops entered Tiwari's Haata on the pretext of looking for a criminal who they alleged was hiding in the Haata. Later it turned out the criminal was already in Ballia jail for three months before the raid. This is the first time that police entered Haata in decades.

Such is the bitterness between the Mutt and the Haata that Tiwaris and Yogi have not met once in last five years.

The Mutt Vs Haata battle will definitely be a highlight of the war for UP. Watch this space.