Dr. Raj Kumar Sangwan, the RLD candidate from Baghpat, has won the Lok Sabha election with 488,967 votes, surpassing his nearest rival by a significant margin. Amarpal of the Samajwadi party (SP) has came second position with 329,508 votes, while the BSP’s Praveen Bansal was placed third with 92,266 votes. RLD contested the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh in alliance with BJP.

The 60-year-old PhD holder Dr. Raj Kumar Sangwan, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) candidate from the constituency, is a seasoned loyalist and national organisational secretory of the party. He was introduced to politics by Chaudhari Charan Singh and has been a dedicated worker of RLD for past 44 years. He’s known for his grassroot level influence. He has faced imprisonment for several times mostly for his involvement in several students’ and farmers’ protests.

He began his political career with Meerut district vice president of the party in 1982. Dr. Raj Kumar Sangwan have taken various roles and key positions of RLD, including serving as the national vice-president of the student RLD, district president of Youth RLD in Meerut, and president of Youth RLD in western Uttar Pradesh. In 1995, he was entrusted with the responsibility of being the state in-charge for the Jharkhand and Bihar elections.

Amarpal Sharma, the SP candidate, is a prominent figure in the local political landscape. He is 56 years old and educated up to twelfth grade. previously, he has served as an MLA from the Sahibabad constituency under the BSP banner. However, in 2017, he was expelled from the party and subsequently joined the Indian National Congress. Then in 2021 he joined Samajwadi Party.

In the 2014 election, BJPs Satyapal Singh won the election by receiving 423475 votes while SP’s Ghulam Mohammed garnered 213609 votes. And the RLD candidate Ajit Singh bagged 199516 votes. However, in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the Bagpath constituency witnessed a fierce competition between BJP’s Dr Satyapal Singh and RLD’s Jayant Chaudhary. Singh won the seat by securing 525789 votes and Chaudhary received 502287 votes.

(This story is part of a Timeline internship project)