The charged campaign for the final phase of elections to 13 Lok Sabha seats of eastern Uttar Pradesh came to an end on Friday evening.
This phase of election in UP will decide the fate of the country as well as its most populous state. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party’s state president Mahendra Nath Pandey, Union ministers Manoj Sinha and Anupriya Patel are among the high profile contestants in this phase.
The epicentre of campaigning in this phase have been Varanasi, from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking re-election, and Gorakhpur, the citadel of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
Polling for the last phase will be held on May 19 from 7 am to 6 pm except for three Assembly segments — Robertsganj, Duddhi and Chakia — of Robertsganj Lok Sabha constituency where polling will end two hours earlier at 4 pm.
Along with polling for 13 Lok Sabha seats, bypolls to Agra (North) Assembly constituency will also be held on May 19.
On Sunday, 2.32 crore voters — 1.26 crore males and 1.06 crore females — will cast their votes in 13,979 booths to decide the fate of 167 candidates who are in fray in Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria, Bansgaon, Ghosi, Salempur, Ballia, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Varanasi, Mirzapur and Robertsganj.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP and its ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) had won all these seats, but in the 2018 bypoll, Samajwadi Party had wrested the Gorakhpur seat from the BJP.
The Samajwadi Party is contesting eight and the BSP five seats in this phase. The BJP has changed candidates in Ballia, Kushinagar and Deoria and internal sabotage on these seats cannot be ruled out.
In Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces almost no challenge. While the BJP’s effort is to increase his previous margin of victory (3.37 lakh votes), the opposition is fighting to reduce the margin.
The biggest challenge lies in Gorakhpur, the traditional seat of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The BJP has fielded Bhojpuri star Ravi Kishan from this seat and he is attracting huge crowds and playing to the gallery with his song, dance and dialogues. The Samajwadi Party has fielded Ram Bhual Nishad in order to capitalise on the growing discontent among the Nishad community. The caste arithmetic is in favour of the SP-BSP candidate and it remains to be seen if Ravi Kishan is able to swing voters.
In Chandauli, BJP state president Mahendra Nath Pandey finds himself in a tough situation as the constituency has over six lakh Yadav and Dalit votes.
Union minister Manoj Sinha is also locked in a direct contest in Ghazipur where Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Afzal Ansari (brother of don-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari).
Union minister Anupriya Patel is facing her second parliamentary election in Mirzapur and is pitted against Lalitesh Pati Tripathi, grandson of Congress veteran late Kamlapati Tripathi.
Deoria is another tough seat for the BJP. Outgoing MP Sharad Tripathi made it to national headlines when he beat up his party MLA with shoes at an official meeting.
Though the BJP has not given ticket to the MP, it has fielded the dropped MP’s father Ramapati Ram Tripathi. The Thakur community is waiting to avenge the humiliation that the MLA Rakesh Singh, faced in the incident. Brahmins are also upset with the manner in which Kalraj Misra was made to resign from the Union Cabinet.
In Kushinagar, the BJP has replaced outgoing MP Rajesh Pandey with Vijay Dubey. The strong presence of former Union minister and Congress candidate RPN Singh is posing big challenge for the BJP.
Maharajganj has been in the news because of Congress candidate Surpiya Shrinetra, a former TV anchor. She is being challenged by former Samajwadi Party MP Akhilesh Singh and outgoing BJP MP Pankaj Chaudhary.
Varanasi has the highest number of 26 candidates, followed by 15 each in Ghosi and Salempur, 14 each in Maharajganj, Kushinagar and Ghazipur, 13 in Chandauli, 12 in Robertsganj, 11 in Deoria, 10 each in Ballia and Gorakhpur, nine in Mirzapur and four in Bansgaon. Counting of votes for all 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP will be taken up on May 23.