Uttar Pradesh will go to polls on Monday for its seventh and final phase in which polling will be held in 54 seats which will decide the fate of 613 candidates. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency Varanasi is one of the heavy constituencies where polling is to be held. Azamgarh, Mau, Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Mirzapur, Bhadohi and Sonbhadra are the other districts where polling will be held from 7 am to 6 pm tomorrow.
The curtain was lifted from a two-month-long campaign on Saturday that saw political parties doing business on issues including Covid-19, law and order, farmers’ protests and the economy.
On Monday, the election process that has been going on for almost a month in UP will also end. The first phase of polling was held on February 10. Counting of votes will take place on March 10.
In the final phase, about 2.06 crore voters will exercise their franchise in 54 seats, which include 11 SC and two ST constituencies.
Monday’s polling will also be an acid test of the alliance between the BJP and the Samajwadi Party (SP) with smaller caste-based parties. In this election, BJP has tied up with Apna Dal (Sonelal) and Nishad Party, while SP chief Akhilesh Yadav has joined hands with Apna Dal (K) and Om Prakash Rajbhar’s Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP).
In the 2017 assembly elections, 29 of these 54 seats were won by the BJP and seven by its allies. SP had won 11 seats and BSP had won six. In the 2012 elections, the SP won 34, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) seven and the BJP just four of them. Three seats were won by the Congress and five other smaller parties.
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State Tourism Ministers Neelkanth Tiwari (Varanasi South), Anil Rajbhar (Shivpur-Varanasi), Ravindra Jaiswal (Varanasi North), Girish Yadav (Jaunpur) and Ramashankar Singh Patel (Marihan-Mirzapur) are in the fray.
SBSP chief Rajbhar (Jahoorabad), Dhananjay Singh (Malhani-Jaunpur) Abbas Ansari, son of JD(U) candidate and mafia-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari, are contesting from Mau Sadar seat in this phase. Dara Singh Chouhan, who left the Yogi Adityanath cabinet and switched to SP, is contesting from Mau’s Ghosi seat.
Campaigning in the final phase reached its zenith with Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the BJP’s election attack in Varanasi and its surrounding districts. Apart from addressing election rallies, he also conducted a roadshow for the three assembly constituencies of Cantonment, Varanasi North and Varanasi South.
In this phase West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee along with Akhilesh Yadav and her RLD colleague Jayant Choudhary descended on the pilgrimage town to hold a joint rally. Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was camping in Varanasi for almost four days and addressed election meetings along with her brother Rahul Gandhi, while BSP supremo Mayawati also campaigned in the district and neighboring areas.
Trying to quell the anti-incumbency wave, the ruling party raised issues like forced migration and law and order problem during the previous SP government, while Akhilesh Yadav took on the issues of inflation, unemployment, stray cattle and farmers’ agitation from the BJP. targeted the government. Three Agricultural Laws of the Centre.
(with PTI inputs)
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