The campaigning for the third phase of UP Assembly polls ended on Friday. The electoral battle for the 18th UP Assembly becomes increasingly crucial for the BJP and the Samajwadi Party.
The challenge before the BJP is to retain the inroads it had made in this region during 2017 Assembly polls and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, while the SP is fighting for reclaiming the lost territory. Polling in the third phase will be held on February 20 on 59 seats spread across 16 districts.
These include five districts from western UP — Firozabad, Mainpuri, Etah, Kasganj and Hathras. Six districts of the Avadh region, namely Kanpur, Kanpur Dehat, Aurraiya, Kannauj, Etawah and Farrukhabad, will go to polls along with five districts from Bundelkhand region: Jhansi, Jalaun, Lalitpur, Hamirpur and Mahoba.
The region, known for dominance of the Yadav community, was once a stronghold of the Samajwadi Party but significant share of votes of Yadav community went with the BJP in 2017. The BJP won 49 out of 59 seats while the SP only had to settle for 9. The Congress got one while the BSP drew a blank from here. Even the Yadav stronghold, which includes Firozabad, Kasganj, Etah, Mainpuri, Farrukhabad, Kannauj and Aurraiya did not vote for the SP which got only six seats in these districts.
Political observers feel the family feud between Akhilesh and Shivpal was a major factor for this shift. The biggest shift came from Kannauj in 2019 when Akhilesh’s wife and sitting MP Dimple Yadav lost the Lok Sabha contest to the BJP even though the SP was in alliance with BSP.
However, now Akhilesh is said to have mended fences with his uncle Shivpal and is contesting the Karhal Assembly seat in Mainpuri to reassure his Yadav voters. Karhal has been a SP stronghold and was retained by the party even in 2017.
The BJP has fielded Union Minister Satya Pal Singh Baghel. who is also an OBC face in the party. However his caste is disputed as Baghel claims to be from schedule caste community and elected to Lok Sabha from Agra, a seat reserved for SC. This is being pitched as one of the big battles of this year's election. The third phase is also crucial for the BJP, which is seeking to retain the 49 seats it won in 2017. This phase has the Hathras constituency where a gang-rape tore UP apart in September 2020.
Akhilesh Yadav has kept the Hathras issue alive in his campaign. He has been observing 'HathraskiBetiSmriti Divas' every month. Then there is Kasganj where the custodial death of one Altaf in November last year had become a major embarrassment for the Yogi Adityanath Government. The police claimed that Altaf has been called for questioning in a case and he ended his life by hanging from a water tap. The matter is now in court.
Kanpur is also going to polls in this phase and the murder of a city businessman Manish Gupta during a police raid in Gorakhpur last year, is being raised at every opposition meeting. The phase also has five districts Bundelkhand that was once a stronghold of the BSP but it was swept by the BJP in 2017. While the BJP is claiming massive development in this region while seeking votes, the SamajwadiParty is exposing areas that have remained untouched by development.