Digvijaya, Jyotiraditya, Union Mins Maneka, RK Singh, Tomar & Akhilesh in fray
The penultimate round of the fast and furious seven-phase Lok Sabha poll on Sunday would witness 59 constituencies voting in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Jharkhand, Haryana and West Bengal with heavyweights like Digvijaya Singh and Jyotiraditya Scindia (Congress), Union Ministers Maneka Gandhi, Narendra Singh Tomar and RK Singh (BJP) and former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav (SP) testing their ballot popularity.
Much is at stake for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) which had won 45 of these 59 Lok Sabha seats in the 2014 elections, pocketing all eight seats from Bihar and winning 13 of 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh. Of the 59 seats, 14 are in UP, 10 seats in Haryana, eight each in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, seven seats in Delhi and four in Jharkhand.
The Trinamool Congress, which is locked in a eyeball-to-eyeball poll confrontation with the BJP, had lifted all 8 seats from Bengal in this phase in 2014 poll. The TMC too will have to put its best foot forward in this round to retain its tight grip in the State. The Congress had won two and the Samajwadi Party and the LJP one seat each in this round five years ago. After the sixth round, another 59 seats would go to polls in the last phase on May 19.
As things stand, Sam Pitroda, a close associate of Congress president Rahul Gandhi, has given a handle to the BJP to beat the Congress with seven seats of Delhi, 13 of Punjab and one of Chandigarh having a sizeable population of Sikhs to go for polls.
Just like Mani Shankar Aiyar did with his ‘neech’ comment before the 2014 polls, Pitroda seems to have stirred the poll pot this time round in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP with his “hua to hua” (so what) comment for the Sikh riots of 1984. Modi and the BJP have since then came down heavily on the Congress by saying that these words are the “character and mentality and intentions of the Congress”. Though Pitroda later apologised, the BJP seems to have made most of the controversial comments before Punjab, Chandigarh and Delhi votes.
The 6th round goes to the floor with the eye-catching contest between former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya and Malegaon terror accused Pragya in Bhopal which has been a BJP stronghold and won by it previously. The poll bout between the two has also been seen as a litmus test for BJP’s assertion that Digvijaya was acting against the interests of the majority community and tainting it with a “terror tag”. Digvijaya has matched Sadhvi’s saffron credibility with his own by organising a ‘havan’ of ‘sadhus’ in Bhopal.
Among other poll fights, Akhilesh is contesting from Azamgarh, the seat won last time by his father Mulayam Singh Yadav against Bhojpuri filmstar Dinesh Lal Nirhaua. Union Minister Maneka Gandhi, who has changed her seat from Piliphit to Sultanpur, is pitted in a good fight with Congress leader Sanjay Singh and BSP’s Chandra Bhadra Singh alias Sonu who is the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ candidate.
Other prominent candidate from UP contesting is State Minister Rita Joshi Bahuguna from Prayagraj (Allahabad).
Besides Bhopal, Guna in Madhya Pradesh has Scindia seeking re-election and Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar from Morena are other contestants from a total of eight seats going to poll on Sunday in the State.
In Haryana, of the 10 Lok Sabha seats voting BJP had contested eight seats in 204 and won seven, INLD two and Congress one. Union Ministers Krishan Pal Gurjar and Rao Inderjt Singh (BJP) too are in the fray. Former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda (Congress) is trying to enter the lower house from Sonepat while his son and sitting MP from Rohtak, Deepender Singh Hooda, is again contesting from the same seat.
In West Bengal, Maoist hotbed Jangal Mahal — the forested region of Bankura, West Midnapore, Jhargram and Purulia, would go to poll. The ruling TMC, the BJP, the Congress and the Left Front constituents - the CPI(M), the CPI and the AIFB — are the main contenders in the eight seats, where the fate of 83 candidates will be decided by a 1,33,69,749-strong electorate.
Manas Ranjan Bhunia is TMC’s candidate who is contesting against BJP’s State president Dilip Ghosh from Medinipur Lok Sabha seat. The Bankura seat will witness a triangular fight because the Congress did not put up any candidate there.
The high-voltage campaign saw poll meetings by Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister and her Andhra Pradesh counterpart N Chandrababu Naidu.
In Jharkhand, Giridih, Dhanbad, Jamshedpur and Singhbhum (ST) constituency are to witness voting on Sunday.