If in 2012 elections, the Samajwadi Party (SP) had won all the five Assembly seats from Gonda, this time around the BJP is campaigning tirelessly to win the hearts and minds of the voters with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally held on Friday.
Son of Brij Bhushan Singh, Prateek Bhushan is contesting from Gonda Sadar seat on BJP’s ticket and is up against sitting MlA’s nephew Suraj Singh.
With former MlA Md Jaleel Khan of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) also in the fray the contest is turning to be a three-way.
Brij Bhushan, who is also a president of Wrestling Federation of India, is making all efforts to make his son sail through.
In Utraula, the SP’s sitting MlA Arif Anwar Hashmi is up against Parvez Ahmad of the BSP and Ram Pratap of the BJP. In the 2012 elections, Arif Anwar edged past the BSP candidate Dhirendra Pratap Singh with just 1,005 votes. With two Muslims candidates in the fray, the BJP is very optimistic about the result in its favour.
In Mankapur, which is a reserved seat, the SP is banking on six-time MlA Ram Vishun Azad, who got elected in 1985, 1989 and 1993 on Congress party ticket and won the seat on the SP’s ticket from 1996 to 2007.
In the previous election, he was denied ticket in favour of Babulal.
In 2012, Babulal defeated his closest opponent Ramesh Chandra of the BSP with an impressive margin of over 27 thousand votes. Ramesh is once again in the fray on BSP ticket, along with BJP’s Ramapati Shastri.
From Mehnaun seat, sitting MlA Nandita Shukla’s son Rahul Shukla is making his debut on the SP’s ticket.
Earlier, there were rumours that Rahul might get a BJP ticket from this very seat. Rahul will take on Arshad Ali Khan of the BSP and Vinay Kumar of the BJP.
Ram Pratap Singh is contesting on the SP’s ticket from Gaura seat which has a Congress candidate in Tarunendra Chandra Patel as well. Abdul Kalam and Prabhat Kumar Verma are in the fray from this seat on BSP and BJP’s ticket. The set has a majority of Kurmi and Muslim votes.