As the veils of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections are lifted, with just hours left for the final and seventh phase of polling on Monday, the stakes for major political players in Uttar Pradesh have reached an all-time high. A total of 54 assembly seats in Purvanchal will go to polls on March 7 while counting of votes for all phases will be held on March 10.
The districts going to polls in the final phase are Azamgarh, Mau, Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Varanasi, Mirzapur, Bhadohi and Sonbhadra.
According to Chief Electoral Officer Ajay Kumar Shukla, all necessary arrangements have been made for free, fair and transparent voting in the seventh phase.
A total of 613 candidates will try their luck in 54 seats in this phase, including 11 reserved for Scheduled Castes and two for Scheduled Tribes, which includes around 2.06 crore voters.
This final phase will also be a test of alliances of both the BJP and the Samajwadi Party with smaller caste-based parties.
BJP’s allies Apna Dal (Sonelal) and Nishad Party and Akhilesh Yadav’s new friends Apna Dal (K), Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) of Om Prakash Rajbhar and others have been trying to rally their supporters.
Once considered a Samajwadi Party stronghold, the BJP made inroads in 2017 by winning 29 seats along with its allies Apna Dal (4) and SBSP (3).
The BSP got six and the Samajwadi Party got 11 seats.
For the Samajwadi Party, its mentor Mulayam Singh Yadav made another rare appearance in Jaunpur from Malhani seat in support of Lucky Yadav, son of his longtime colleague late Parasnath Yadav.
Mulayam Singh had earlier campaigned for his son and party president Akhilesh Yadav in Mainpuri’s Karhal seat.
Prominent contestants for this phase include UP ministers Neelkanth Tiwari, Anil Rajbhar, Ravindra Jaiswal, Girish Yadav and Ram Shankar Singh Patel.
Dara Singh Chauhan, who joined the Samajwadi Party after resigning from the Yogi Adityanath cabinet, is also contesting from Ghosi in Mau.
SBSP president Om Prakash Rajbhar (Zahoorabad), Dhananjay Singh (Malhani-Jaunpur) as JD(U) candidate and Abbas Ansari, son of mafia turned politician Mukhtar Ansari, from Mau Sadar seat are other prominent candidates in the final phase.
The BJP is making every effort to retain its stronghold, while the Samajwadi Party is trying to regain the constituencies it won in the 2012 assembly elections.
Also, the seventh and final phase of the UP assembly elections will be a litmus test for allies on both sides – from Anupriya Patel in the BJP-led alliance to Om Prakash Rajbhar in the SP-led alliance.
In this election, the BJP has fielded 48 candidates out of 54 seats on the party’s election symbol, while its allies Apna Dal(S) and Nishad Party have fielded 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.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, BJP President JP Nadda, Union Ministers, Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah are campaigning extensively in Purvanchal to repeat the success story of 2017.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is camping in Varanasi’s Kabir Chaura Math in an attempt to connect the Dalit voters of Purvanchal, who are here in large numbers.
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