Penultimate phase: Testing time for Yogi, Swami Prasad today

The sixth and penultimate phase of the UP assembly polls will see the fate of chief minister Yogi Adityanath and his ex-minister Swami Prasad Maurya being sealed on Thursday

The sixth and penultimate phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections will see the fate of chief minister Yogi Adityanath and his ex-minister (now a rebel) Swami Prasad Maurya, among others, being sealed on Thursday.

Polling staff at a distribution center to collect polling equipment for the sixth and the penultimate phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Election, in Gorakhpur on Wednesday. (ANI)

Yogi, currently a member of the legislative council, is contesting his first assembly polls – from Gorakhpur Urban seat.

A heavyweight OBC leader, Maurya, who had crossed over to the Samajwadi Party shortly before the polls, is contesting from Fazilnagar (Kushinagar) seat.

A total of 2,14,62,816 voters will decide the fate of 676 candidates in 57 constituencies, spread over 10 eastern UP districts namely Ambedkar Nagar, Balrampur, Siddharthnagar, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria and Ballia.

State chief electoral officer Ajay Kumar Shukla said all preparations for the polling have been completed.

Other prominent leaders in the fray in this phase are UP Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu from Tamkuhi Raj (Kushinagar) seat and leader of the opposition in the state assembly and senior SP leader Ram Govind Chaudhary from Bansdih (Ballia) seat.

Surendra Singh, the sitting BJP MLA from Bairia in Ballia, who joined the Vikasheel Insaan Party (VIP) after being denied a ticket by the BJP, will also be facing the electorate in this phase.

VIP is a Bihar-based outfit that is a new entrant in Uttar Pradesh’s electoral politics.

The 57 seats are crucial for the BJP, which had won 46 of them in 2017 and the SP, which had won 32 in 2012.

The 2017 tally of 57 seats was: BJP 46, SP 2, Congress 1, BSP 5, Apna Dal (S) 1, SBSP 1, Independent 1.

The 2012 tally was the SP 32, BJP 8, BSP 9, Congress 5, Peace Party 2, and NCP 1.

Yogi’s contest from the Gorakhpur Urban seat has become interesting with SP fielding the wife of late Upendra Dutt Shukla, a former BJP leader, and with firebrand Dalit leader Chandra Shekhar Azad, president of Azad Samaj Party, contesting the elections from the seat.

Top leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, chief minister Yogi, BJP president JP Nadda, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi, criss-crossed the poll-bound districts while campaigning for their respective parties.

During campaigning, Modi had attacked BJP’s rivals, especially SP and Congress, by tagging them as “ghor pariwarvadi” (staunch dynasts) who, he said, could never make India capable or Uttar Pradesh empowered.

Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi rebutted the charge by saying BJP was against her family, which made sacrifices for the country. Akhilesh had accused the BJP of hatching a conspiracy for ending reservation and selling government organisations to the private sector.

Reservation and caste census -- the issues that Akhilesh and his alliance partners raised -- would come into play prominently in this region that has OBC dominance.

Also, both BJP’s and SP’s smaller alliance partners are active in the eastern region.

BJP alliance partners are Apna Das (S) and Nishad Party while SP alliance partners are Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) and Apna Dal (K).

BJP has given four out of the 57 tickets to Nishad Party and one to Apna Dal (S) and the SP has given seven tickets to SBSP, which was a BJP ally in the 2017 assembly polls.

In the previous five phases, a total of 292 constituencies have voted; 57 will vote on Thursday and the remaining 54 will vote in the last phase on March 7. The result date is March 10.

EC PREPARED

The election commission (EC) on Wednesday said it had made all preparations for free and peaceful voting on Thursday.

“The commission has made elabourate arrangements to ensure fair, safe and peaceful voting on Thursday,” chief electoral officer Ajay Kumar Shukla said.

The commission, he said, had deployed 56 general observers, 10 police observers and 18 expenditure observers apart from1,680 sectors magistrates, 228 zonal magistrates, 173 static magistrates and 2,137 micro-observers to keep vigil on the voting exercise.

“Besides, at the state level, the commission has appointed one senior general observer, one senior police observer and two expenditure observers for the polls,” he added.

Shukla said adequate number of paramilitary forces, too, had been deployed to ensure peaceful voting.

He said all booth-level officers (BLOs) had been directed to be present with electoral rolls at the helpdesks at polling centres.