An intense political battle is on in central Uttar Pradesh and with the fate of candidates to be locked in the EVMs on Tuesday parties are leaving no stone unturned to make their mark in the second phase.
Pilibhit has five constituencies — Pilibhit, Puranpur, Baheri, Bisalpur and Barkhera.
Bhartiya Janata Party’s Union Minister Maneka Gandhi has a strong hold on the area and her prestige is at stake as her work in the region would be one of the factors in party’s performance.
Samajwadi Party’s Riyaz Ahmad made a hat-trick of victories from Pilibhit in the 2012 Assembly elections from this seat, beating Sanjay Singh Gangwar by over 4,000 votes. This time Sanjay is contesting on BJP’s ticket making it a tough scenario for Riyaz.
The Bahujan Samaj Party has fielded Arshad Khan, who contested the 2007 election from Puranpur. Electricity and lack of basic amenities are the main issues here.
Being one of the top agricultural districts of the State, the announcement of loan waiver and other sops to farmers by all political parties in their manifesto is not a guarantee of a win and the polling is expected to take place on religion and caste basis.
In Puranpur, sitting MlA Peetam Ram, who defeated BJP candidate Babu Ram Paswan by over 30,000 votes, is once again set to lock horns with Babu Ram. They both face challenge from BSP candidate KK Arvind, who is an engineer.
With a massive win of over 50,000 votes in 2012 elections, Agysa Ram Saran Verma is once again up against Anis Ahmed Khan, a joint candidate of SP-Congress alliance and three-time MlA.
Ata-ur-Rehman of SP and Chatra Pal Singh of the BJP are once again locked against each other in their previous encounter in 2012. The SP candidate edged past the BJP candidate by 18 votes.
From Barkhera seat, sitting MlA Hemraj of Samajwadi Party is up against Kishan Rajput of BJP and Dr Shailendra Singh Gangwar.
Bareilly is a stronghold of Union Minister Santosh Gangwar, whose reputation is also at stake as he has gone to the lok Sabha from this seat seven times. Currently, sitting MlA’s Dr Arun Kumar and Rajesh Agarwal from Bareilly and Bareilly Cantt respectively are looking favourite this time too. Arun is up against Prem Prakash of Congress and Anees Ahmed Khan of BSP while Rajesh is taking on Rajendra Prasad Gupta of BSP and Mjahid Khan of Congress.
“Electricity and roads are main issues of the city. Even the posh areas are getting 12 to 13 hours of electricity supply. The NH24 is in bad state, it’s been under-construction for the last 5 years. We can reach Delhi in 4 hour by road but it generally takes us 8 hours to reach lucknow, it’s been five years no Government has taken this project seriously,” said Vinod Kumar a resident of Bareilly.
From Bhojipura sitting Shazil Jamal Ansari is contesting from Samajwadi Party’s ticket while the BSP’s Sultan Beg once again is vying with his closest competitor DC Verma of BJP from Meerganj. Bhagwat Sitting MlA of Nawabganj Saran Gangwar will lock horns with Kesar Singh of BJP and Virendra Singh Gangwar of BSP.