Putting a break on the traffic movement for several hours in the state capital on Monday’s forenoon, just before closure of campaigning for the fourth phase elections in Uttar Pradesh, all the three major political parties except for Bahujan Samaj Party, took out road-shows to garner maximum support.
Interestingly, chief minister, Akhilesh Yadav, himself took the campaign for Party’s candidate Abhisekh Mishra, while Rajnath Singh and Reeta Bahuguna Joshi, too made a last minute efforts to improve their position. In another VVIP constituency, Rae Bareli, it was Priyanka Vadra Gandhi, who led the road show for her mother Sonia Gandhi to ensure a record win for Congress president.
Voting will take place in 14 of the 80 Parliament constituencies in this round on Wednesday. The important leaders whose fate will be sealed oncoming Wednesday included, Congress president Sonia Gandhi( Rae Bareli), BJP president Rajnath Singh, former UPCC president, Reeta Bahuguna Joshi( both lucknow), Union Coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal and BJP’s Murli Manohar Joshi(both Kanpur), Union minister of state for Rural Development Pradeep Jain Aditya and BJP’s Sadhvi Uma Bharati( both Jhansi),Chairman of the Schedule Caste Commission and Congress candidate P l Punia( Barabanki), BJP candidate Shakshi Maharaj and Congress candidate, Anu Tandon( both Unnao) and Union minister of state for Human Resources development Jitin Prasada.
The fourth phase of elections was witnessing the most hectic campaigning by the political parties and the Congress, BJP, Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party are leaving no stone unturned to woo the voters. On the last day of campaigning, all political parties have stepped up their efforts to woo the voters specially by holding road shows to reach before maximum people at the last moment. Campaigning in this phase of election has esclated war of words between the BJP and Congress and now the leaders are hitting others below the belt with personnel attacks.
Campaigning for the ruling Samajwadi Party also received a set back when their leaders had to cancel their meetings on Sunday following death of the elder brother of party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav on Sunday. But on Monday, the party leaders continued their campaign. Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati also hold two election meetings in Gonda and Balrampur. Several Bollywood stars like Hema Malini, Nagma, Amisha Patel, Vivek Oberio, Raj Babbar, Mahesh Bhatt and others also campaigned for Congress and BJP respectively, while Archana Puran Singh and some other film stars, joined road show with Aam Adami Party’s candidate Zaved Jafari on Sunday. However, due to scoring heat, the campaigning might be hit by low turnout in the rural areas though the politicians are trying to reach every nook and corner of the constituencies to motivate the public to join the biggest democratic exercise.
Over 2.25 crore voters will exercise their franchise in the fourth phase of elections in 14 seats and will cast their votes in 25,380 polling booths. lucknow has the highest number of 29 candidates in the fray followed by 21 each in Unnao and Kanpur. Jalaun has the lowest 11 candidates in the fray. Around 11 candidates have serious crime against them including murder, attempt to murder and kidnapping. Of the 233 candidates contesting the fourth phase of lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, as many as 36 have criminal records and 73 are ‘crorepatis. The BJP has the most tough task to improve its tally from just one seat won in last elections amongst the constituencies in which voting would take place in this phase. In the 2009 elections, Congress won the highest 6 seats in this phase followed by 4 by the BSP, three by SP and one by the BJP. BJP, BSP and Congress have given candidates in all the 14 seats but the SP has given one short as it did not give candidature against Sonia Gandhi in Rae Bareli. Aam Admi
Party(AAP) has also given candidates in all the 14 seats. The seats going to poll in the fourth phase in UP are: Dhaurahra, Sitapur, Misrikh(SC), nnao, Mohanlalganj(SC), lucknow, Rae Bareli, Kanpur, Jalaun, Jhansi, Hamirpur, Banda, Fatehpur and Barabanki(SC).