From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: Campaigning for the last and final phase of the assembly election in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh ended Saturday evening with suspense lingering till the counting of votes on Thursday in five states of UP, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur, starting with the opinion polls Monday evening after polling ends for 54 Assembly seats in Purvanchal of U.P. Manipur held second phase of polls on Saturday.
Political stakes are very high for not only the BJP and the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, but even for the BSP, Congress and other smaller parties.
The high-octane campaign undertaken by all prominent leaders of contesting parties witnessed their best shot as the region that borders Bihar is crucial for all parties.
Significance of Purvanchal can be gauged from the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi campaigned in his Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency for two days and held meetings with prominent citizens and intellectuals apart from a roadshow. The BJP ensured a massive turnout of supporters by holding a roadshow of PM Modi in Varanasi on Friday.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, Central Ministers Anurag Thakur, Smriti Irani and other top party leaders visited not only Varanasi but held meetings and roadshows in Azamgarh and other constituencies.
The bigwigs of BJP including Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with UP CM Yogi Adityanath, BJP Chief JP Nadda and Union Minister Rajnath Singh have been extensively campaigning in Purvanchal to repeat its 2017 success story.
The Samajwadi Party on the other hand also went all out to regain its bastions like Azamgarh, Ghazipur, Jaunpur and Bhadohi. Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav is the incumbent MP from Azamgarh parliamentary constituency. However, this time for the first time ever, he is contesting assembly elections from Karhal assembly seat of Mainpuri.
Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, general secretary incharge UP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel also held roadshows and addressed meetings. The Congress party is not in a mood to give up easily on the seats of Purvanchal. Priyanka Gandhi camped at Kabir Chaura Math in Varanasi in an attempt to galvanise the Dalit voters in Purvanchal, who are in significant numbers here.
On one hand, the BJP has left no stone unturned and deployed every means to retain its bastion, its main contender Samajwadi Party tried its best to regain the constituencies it won in the 2012 Assembly elections. Also, the seventh and last phase of UP Assembly elections is a litmus test for allies on both the sides from Anupriya Patel to Om Prakash Rajbhar.
Many seats in the Purvanchal region were once considered a stronghold of the Samajwadi Party. However, in 2017 the bastion was lost to BJP in the Modi wave. In 2017 the SP was able to retain 11 seats in Purvanchal region, while the BJP won 29 seats and its ally Apna Dal (S) had won 3 seats. The Bahujan Samaj Party had also bagged six seats in the region.
In this election, BJP has fielded 48 candidates out of 54 seats on the party symbol while its ally Apna Dal (S) and Nishad Party have fielded 3-3 candidates each. On the other hand, Samajwadi Party has fielded 45 candidates on its symbol while its ally SBSP has fielded 7 candidates and Apna Dal (K) has fielded two candidates.
Purvanchal is considered to be the bellwether region of the UP Assembly and results here on March 10 will give a firm indication of the political weather of the state that sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha, in what is treated as a rehearsal of the parliamentary elections in 2024.
###
